The revelations arising out of the Comey testimony on Capitol hill the other day will not go without consequence. It is becoming clearer and clearer that the administration was conducting wiretapping programs without the legal authorization of its undeniably loyal and conservative political appointees in the Department of Justice. If Ashcroft was unwilling to authorize the program, it must have been truly egregious. In fact, Ashcroft was not only unwilling to authorize it, he was willing to resign over the program.
Today the New York Times and the Washington Post have called for complete investigations into the matter. Glenn Greewald has dissected this issue as well as anyone and calls for a special prosecutor to investigate the matter. He also points out the siginificance of the Washington Post, a conservative paper supportive of the administration, actually accusing the administration of potentially criminial acts.
As the blogosphere and the newspapers have had time to digest the testimony, the inconsistencies between Gonzales' story and the facts are becoming more disturbing. As much as people would like to avoid the truth, partly due to the damage it will do to the institutions involved, it is becoming impossible to deny the crimes that have occurred. (Check out Greenwald's work on the subject, it is worth it! He should win a pulitzer prize, if such a thing exists for bloggers.)
2 comments:
Totally agree Philasurfer. It looks like the MSM did cover some after we complained about it yesterday, but it is interesting as you say in your post, their reaction to it. Everyone is sour on impeachment proceedings because of the Clinton fiasco (someone who didn't deserve it), but when someone does deserve it (certainly Gonzalez, but I think it should go all the way up) we are squeamish. It doesn't make sense. There still is such a fear in the press and the politicians of this war mongerers. BTW where do we catch Greenwald's work? Great post.
I really don't think that it is a fear amongst journalists themselves, in general. But the publishers, news executives and such are right there in bed with these politicians, and are afraid of any bridge-burning, so they go very slowly, if at all. thank god for blogs, who are less-beholden to anyone.
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