Redstate

to place national security in front of political activism, perhaps indictments should be pursued for leaking and publishing of these secrets.

But oh, I forgot. Publishing top-secret material in order to embarass a Republican administration is merely dissent, which is to liberals the highest form of patriotism.

Why does anyone bother to read that over-hyped fishwrap anymore?

ongoing shared intelligence operations?  First NSA, now this, assuming NSA was a first.  Intellignce is a prerequisite to waging war, more so now where we can't count on satellites to track the movements of regiments or divisions.  Take away this prerequisite and we are operating blindly and in increased vulnerability.  The irony is that countries were assisting us in our so called unilateral war that will now back off, increasing the risk of loss of life in the bargain.  Words can't capture what and who we're dealing with in the media and the Times. I tried "scum" but that's inadequate.  Give me time.

Since the NYT seems bent on the destruction of our country, and is actively aiding and abetting our enemies in a time of war by releasing classified information, shut 'em down and prosecute those in charge!

There is a huge difference between dissent and treason.  The NYT crossed the line long ago.

Someone or ones in a position to know all this sensitive information is leaking it to the NYT, in full knowledge that it will get published. If I didn't know better I'd say we have an operating fifth column that puts the WWII and Cold War-era KGB infiltrations to shame. And they seem to be pursuing a shadow foreign policy, quite effectively.

The fine, responsible people at the NYT strike me as  just a bunch of howling four-year-olds. The real traitors are somewhere else.

We have a CIA and elements of the NSA that leak classified information in time of war. This is tantamount to treason. People need to be arrested and put in Leavenworth for at least twenty years for this.

I wish the Bush Administration were serious about internal security.

Then why not an advertiser boycott? Is that out of our hands? If so why?

If the NYT wants to play activist, perhaps they should pay for it. I think a compelling case can be made for putting them out of business...why not start with letters to their advertisers?

Something like:

Dear (Continental Airlines, Samsung, Fidelity, ETrade),

     If more Americans knew you advertised in a "newspaper" that has been shown, repeatedly, to be treasonous, do you think your sales would go down? I do.

I'm open to other suggestions...

The Times is not the leaker, but they are certainly an active participant in the crime by publishing these materials.

Another thought: how aggressive are they in pursuing this information? Are they compensating someone for providing this? If so, that rises to the level of espionage. These are important questions and a criminal investigation is needed to get the bottom of the matter.

A differnet kind of newspaper would have called the FBI when they were approached with these materials. The perp would already be in the slammer.

I wish the Bush Administration were serious about internal security.

Who's the role model, Bill Clinton?

I have visions of the Mossad and other foreign intelligence services passing around audio tapes of his phone sex sessions with Monica.

The NYT actively working to solicit these leks and using them to organize defeat for the United States in this war is another.

Both need to be dealt with as harshly as possible.

Boycotting the NYT and its holdings. Criminal prosecution against the leakers. Criminal prosecution against those soliciting the leaks. This is beyond outrage. There is no excuse of free speach or diversity of opinion in this. It is clearly activity designed to harm this country and put its soldiers and agents at risk.

I read this and think the scenario is one of two things. Either,

a. it is true and the NYT will no longer make any "assurances of secrecy". Well, this is great because who is going to give them any information now? Or,

b. it isnt true at all. Im leaning towards this. By claiming that they are now going to "out" anyone helping the US presumes that they have until now HAD information like this and CHOSEN to keep it quiet. Does anyone really believe that?

I think they are just ticked off that it took them this long to find this information out and need to bolster their own self-importance. Maybe they dont want to look bad that it took so long to learn this by saying, "Oh yeah, we knew this all along but now were not going to play ball anymore."

Combine that with the super-secret Cheney cover-up and they're probably feeling kind of out of the loop these days.

I dont think a boycott is needed. Their readership is declining and their significance is waning. It seems like the spastic gasps of an organization that knows it is in trouble. Kind of like the democrats and how Rush has mentioned that its more fun to watch them when they're out of power.

And it makes me look a little more favorably on the Germans!

So now the Times is going to directly risk the lives of American troops and their allies through the publishing of classified tactical information...  who's running what type of operations out of which allied countries.

That's a whole new ball game.

doesn't make them immune to charges, if they are revealing known secrets.

Makes you wonder who would have won WWII, if the NYTimes had the current morals it operates under.  Would we all be speaking German (and how many of us would even be alive).

in a real CIA/Administration scandal the heroic and non-partisan Patrick Fitzgerald has said that the Classified status of "one of the most beautiful women in Washington", Vanity Fair Plame, is irrelevant.  At least now we have a standard, it's Ok to run with classified information because it's wrong to run with unclassified information.  For a while I thought we were drifting but at least now we have a benchmark.

"Traitors."

leaks when the leaks are investigated.

This is one reason I don't want a blanket protection for jounalists.

IMO journalists should not be permitted to cover for a leaker, when the leaker is suspected of committing a crime.

And while there may be some debate as to whether the newspaper is violating any laws, it is pretty clear that whoever gave them the classified information sure enough is, and considering the information, I don't think there will be the "was there or was there not a crime" debate like that in Plamegate.

The NYTimes should be rightfully impugned for printing this information. I agree with all of the sentiments you expressed.

But the fact is, if the NYTimes didn't print this information, someone else would, someone possibly outside the legal jurisdiction of the U.S. (like AL Jazeera). The leakers would find some other outlet to publish their dirty laundry.

The Times is just a stooge in this. I agree that they enable this to happen and should be criminally held to account for that, but we need to go after the leakers with criminal punishments if we want to actually solve the problem.

"German intelligence services helped the United States invade Baghdad, and will now pay the price,"

Strange, I can't seem to find that actual quote in the article anywhere.

How does Bill Gertz's reporting (which I love) differ from that of the NYTimes?

Certainly Gertz doesn't purblish information for the purpose of harming our national interest like the Times does. But isn't he just as guilty of publishing leaks related to national security issues?

It's ironic: usually, I post in threads that have something to do with the constitution.  And, of course, conservatives are famous for having literalist interpretations of the Constituion.  So, for all of you so quick to call the NYT (and the leaker in question) traitors, I humbly remind you that treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution.

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

Obviously, these reports do not constitute war against the US.  Nor are they adhering to an enemy.  The only possible reading of this as treason is the "aid and comfort" clause, but even that seems ludicrous in this case.  What they've done is write about intelligence sharing.  They haven't been funding insurgency or something like that...

In any case, there's no material harm here.  No lives were put at risk.  Nothing of the sort at all.

Subversion:  Of US intelligence and operational activities and interests.

Collaboration:  With the enemies of America and its efforts in the Middle East.

Sabotage:  Of discrete American foreign relations of the most sensitive nature with nations requiring 'cover' for their cooperation.

What the Times has NOT done:  Leak classified information.  Someone else did that to the Times; who fecklessly and recklessly (sold for a price) exploited the information in order to damage this country.

Bush-hatred may or may not drive all or any part of the Times actions - that is irrelevant at this point.  The Times is openly conducting itself as an agent of hostile foreign governments and organizations; and friends - that is treason! More than treason, the Times is in collaboration with those with whom this nation is at war.  Call THAT by any name you wish.

Freedom of the press in this instance, and all of its underlying constitutional authorities - simply no longer apply to the Times activities.  The Times has willingly become an organ of Information Warfare, Psychological Warfare and political subversion for outside (as well as internal) interests inimical to this country.  It has openly allied with our enemies and attacked our friends.

It is impossible to determine what negative effect the Times' activities have produced upon extremely sensitive field operations abroad - and upon the Americans and friends operating on-the-ground endangered or betrayed by them.

Such horrendous abuses of the constitutional guarantees of freedon of the press, and the clear and instant damage they create upon the country that guarantees them - ought, in my opinion, cause the Times to forfeit them.  It is time to suspend the Times operations and prosecute its management.

This country is still at war - regardless of whether certain elements here and abroad may disagree.

Where is the outrage in this country?  Have US citizens becomed so accustomed to this kind of treasonous conduct that they simply stare, flat-footed, mouths agape, blinking dully in its presence?  Has the Congress become so partisanly impacted that NOTHING propels them to act in unison in our national defense?  Has the Bush Administration become timid, defensive, reactive, and given over framing issues and the national agenda to its enemies?

Do the over-abused 'protected' rights of selected groups, organizations and information peddlers supercede the huge majority's rights to a secure and ordered nation, and their obligations to at least not endanger those rights.

We are well past the time to begin asking these difficult questions - and acting upon the answers.

has seemed to work for Jesse jackson.

This article is just a teaser for Gordon's book:

Michael R. Gordon is the chief military correspondent for The New York Times. Reporting for this article was developed in the course of research for "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," by Mr. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine lieutenant general and a former military correspondent for The Times. The book will be published by Pantheon Books in March.

is the relaxation of classified data protocols under the Clinton administration.  (Remember re-inventing Government)  What this meant in hundreds of classified data collection sites is that borrowers stopped having to fill out receipts for documents, -- they could just throw them away in a proper disposal bin when done.  Thus, the trail of who held what information is pretty much gone.  As is the fear that you will be found out by your office.  Of course the media could give up the source, but will claim first ammendmane rights and go to jail instead

What part of "effectively told" went over your head?

The NY Times board reminds me of what Schwarzkopf said about Saddam in '91; "Every time we war gamed the options, he picked the dumbest one."  The Times readership has been falling like a brick.  What does their leadership do?  introduce TimesSelect for $49.99 a year!  We'll make you pay for the one thing you read in our paper!

I think some of their motivation for doing all of these NSA stories and other "whistleblower" stories is to get the free advertizing that comes with a scandal.  I don't think they see the long view, which is that Risen is going to go to jail and they will be seen as traitors - not heroes.

Prosecuting the leakers should go without saying. That would happen a lot more quickly if the New York Times would call in the FBI when some weasel approaches them with classified information that obviously damages our ability to work with allies.

But that isn't what they do, is it.

...always guarding their coverage of events in Germany for fear of wounding the sensitivities of "Herr Hitler."  The NYT, London Times and BBC were all the same, just like they are now.  Weenies.

So I guess we can survive it again.

It should actually be phrased like this:

The Times effectively told intelligence services worldwide that German intelligence services helped the United States invade Baghdad, and will now pay the price.

Otherwise it might be taken as putting words in someone's mouth.

Yeah, Nick, way to talk above the mouth-breathers there. You should know better.

Next time I won't point out something I was taught in Journalism 1010.

Will it take militant Muslims nearly three months to find out about this as it went with the Danish cartoons?  And how will they react when they find out their governments have cooperated with the Great Satan?

Bad form. Just learn from it.

Better than giving Gashira ammo.

Well, there's your problem, you took at least one "journalism" class.

Bang bang ;).

that printing intelligence information in a public journal is not aid and comfort? Strange standard of aid and comfort you have.

No material harm? So next time we need information the Germans won't give it to us and Americna soldiers may die as a result. Bu tno material harm here. Fie.

Education is evil, especially at those liberal universities. Next time I'll learn ethics and responsible journalism from Fox News and Bill O'Reilly.

how will they react when they find out their governments have cooperated with the Great Satan?

That's why this leak is so harmful. Mubarak became president of Eqypt when his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated. One of the things Sadat had done to upset people was negotiate with Israel (as opposed to driving them into the sea). The assassins were army members who were part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. According to Wikipedia, "A fatwa approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric later convicted in the U.S. for his role in the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing."

That's a tough part of the world. Mubrarak took a serious risk for us, and this is what he gets back.

Horsefeathers. All he did was move the phrase "effectively told" from the right to the left. Journalists are always moving stuff to the left. That's why I don't like journalists.

I don't write left. I write right. When you write right, write right right.

At least they don't print fake memos and try to pass them off as authentic ...

freeyourmind, I'm very interested in pursuing this line of attack.  In fact, I have secured the domain name "killthenewyorktimes.com" as a launch.  However, if this gets serious (hope it does) we may want to choose something a bit more sanguine so advertisors will take us seriously.

Thoughts and suggestions on how to proceed.

I hate to break the news, but it is bad form to place something in quotes when it isn't a quote. Adding "effectively told" does not somehow make it correct. It's still considered putting words in someone's mouth.

For example:

Nick Danger effectively said "I'm not going to admit that Gashira may be correct."

Did adding that somehow negate the fact that it implies the quote came from you? It may be splitting hairs, but quotes are supposed to be reserved for quotes.

Nit picking quota in for the day?

irony.

It's called ignoring the substance of the subject and picking at his wording.

i.e., nit picking.

I would have thought that valabull edjamucation at tha thar hi falootin college woulda done taughtcha that

You seem to think an opinion person is a journalist.

I can't see why it would be worse if Al Jazeera printed these leaked secrets.  At least they do not pretend to be our friend.

Whether they or the NYT disclosed these leaks first, the damage to the United States is the same.  It hurts worse to have it be a paper located in the city which took the worst damage in 9-11.

I'm still focusing my anger at the NY Times.

... and quite frankly I can barely stand him ... but I'd trust him a hell of a lot more to tell me the story straight than any member of the White House Press Corps.

Why?

Because he admits his biases upfront and lets you know where he is coming from on any issue he focusses on. That is a h*ll of a great more honesty than David Gregory, Jim Moran, Dana Milbank, Anderson Cooper, Elizabeth Bumiller, etc. have managed to show in their entire careers.

There's hardly a single report these people have filed since January 2001 in which their hostility toward this Administration has not been apparent to even the most casual of observers.

Yet each and every single one of them would look you in the eye and tell you that their views do not color their reporting. Hogwash spewing hypocrites ...

These are the very same people who wrote articles and filed reports questioning the nomination of John Ashcroft to the Attorney General's office because they were "concerned" his "strongly held personal beliefs" would prevent him from fairly and impartially discharging his duties as he's sworn to do.

These are the very same people who shrieked bloody murder at Antonin Scalia because he refused to recuse himself from a case involving the Vice President. Apparently, they were "concerned", his "strong friendship" with Cheney would make him break his oath and neglect to rule impartially. Need I mention Alito and Roberts? Need I remind you about the New York Times attempts to get at Robert's childrens' adoption records for no other reason than to hurt his nomination?

So, why, when unlike Judges, Soldiers, Policemen, Doctors, etc. no journalist is required to swear any oath to be fair and impartial, should I trust a journalist? Because he's a journalist? Why am I supposed to believe that journalists, unique among all human beings upon the Earth, are capable of keeping even the slightest hint of their personal views out of their work, when the very same journalists refuse to extend the same courtesy to others?

So, yes, you would learn far more about ethics and responsible journalism from Bill O'Reilly and Brit Hume than you ever would from Victor Navasky down at the CSJ. They tell where they're coming from. They do not pretend to be something they're not.

doxasticpirate says so.

Be angry at the Times by all means. But don't think for a second that if they suddenly changed their ways, this information would not be getting out.

Let's say the New York Times gets hold of the CIA's NOC list of agents in Europe ... and publishes it. Or how about publishing an article detailing the planned movements of US Marine battalions in a war zone? How about publishing an article exposing the details of an ongoing CIA operation?

Would that be treason?

What if the New York Times had published on it's pages the plans for Operation Overlord?

All these acts may not be treason. But they come so close that your side of the political spectrum should be every bit as horrified as the Right is.

No lives were put at risk.

And how the h*ll would you know?

I have a thought.  If the Times wants to publish leakers information that results in deaths either to military or intelligence personnel, what about using our friendly court system in order to prosecute a few wrongful death suits?  It may take a lot of time, money, and mental anguish, but it worked for Nicole Simpson's family (sort of).  Bury them with lawsuits.  Let Capitist America work on these people at the Times.  Look what happened with Knisley's departure from the editorial board at the LA Times.  Just a thought.

This reminds me of the Left-Wing "... they're gonna do it anyway so you should teach your thirteen how to have oral sex properly ..."

I point out a basic grammatical error and I get:

1. Called a nitpicker.
   
   
2. Various insults to my education, and education in general.
   
   
3. The usual "At least [insert reference to Clinton or CBS here]" justification.

After first reading Nick Danger's post I though "Wow, the NYT actually said that?" When I realized his error I decided to point it out since I've seen the editors correct FPPs.

My mistake in opening my mouth.

We all hope you had as much fun picking it as you will playing with it.

If I condoned the Times behavior your analogy might be sound.

What I'm saying is that the problem must be attacked at the source, namely the leakers.

Or to use your very own analogy, using abstinence education attacks the problem at the source, namely kids having sex.

I'm responding to your Fox News and O'Reilly quip ... or didn't you notice?

You brought it up ... so stop playing the victim.

I had to pick a spot somewhere ;).

Sounds like a lot of RedSaters are starting to size up their Tin Hats.

Nick's original:

"German intelligence services helped the United States invade Baghdad, and will now pay the price," the Times effectively told intelligence services worldwide.

Your corrected version:

The Times effectively told intelligence services worldwide that German intelligence services helped the United States invade Baghdad, and will now pay the price.

Let's assume there really is a substantive difference between the two, and start over using your version instead of Nick's.

What I want to know is: do you agree with the statement?

might be a little harsh...what about Stoptreaoninprint...or...punishtreasonousprint...

But I also think a majority of journalistic outlets would have ran the story. The NYT just happens to get fed the information more than anyone else.

The current leadership has proven lacking the balls to do anything to stop these leaks.  A handful of hollow words with no absolute demands for justice and calling these traitors out for what they are traitors.  Simply put "Hell yeah we question your patriotism in such issues".

The NYT's reporters should have been rounded up and imprisoned until they revealed their sources long ago at the mystery CIA flights.  Not to mention a case to revoke the papers publishing license should have been made after they ignored a presidential order to hold the story on the phone tap issue.  Heads should be rolling at the CIA and if Goss can't swing the axe we should start with his head it's his responsibility.

Leaking of classified information is criminal Treason no if ands or buts no matter who leaks period.  We can't have every low level yahoo reassessing what should and should not be classified.  The leakers should be made example of and all associated punished.  

Things can be pretty confusing when you just randomly ignore certain words.

The cases you describe would, most likely, be treason.  That is because they would, most likely, produce material harm.  We'd have some of those agents from the NOC list killed, for example.  But, there's no parallel like that here.  This move didn't expose agents (ahem), it didn't expose troop movements, nothing like that.  Rather, it was a report on something that happened about two years ago.

How can I prove that this doesn't put anyone's life at risk?  Well, I suppose I can't.  But then, I'm not the one accusing anybody of a crime; you're the one with the burden of proof.  And I think that it's a pretty hard sell, given that this report is something that happened two years ago.

Sure, ceteris parabis, we shouldn't be airing out our confidential material in the press.  But is that aid and comfort the enemy in itself?  I just don't see how that can be the case.  Certainly, the NYT didn't intend to provide such aid and comfort; they were trying to release information they thought was interesting or useful or something.  Hell, this isn't even the kind of release that seems politically motivated -- if anything it makes the administration look better (see? our coalition was bigger than you thought!).  So, I just don't see the intent end of it.

And your material harm is seems to amount to "maybe the Germans won't help us next time."  That just shows we have different conceptions of material harm.  You don't know what the Germans will or won't do next time because it hasn't happened yet, and we just don't know what "next time" will look like.  The whole point of asking for material harm is to avoid these kinds of guessing games!

I also think a majority of journalistic outlets would have ran the story

That doesn't make what the NYT did any better.

It's kinda like how the guy who beat up Reginald Denny got off, when his California jury bought his "but everybody else was doing it" defense.

(Oh, btw, neither he nor his lawyer said those exact words, I was using the quotes to set that phrase apart from the rest of the sentence.)

You posting from work again?

This is a blog. I am an advocate. I go out of my way to poke the New York Times in the eyes with pointy sticks.

It's time you knew.

The Times is a newspaper. It is an advocate. It goes out of its way to poke the United States in the eyes with pointy sticks.

It's time you knew that, too.

If instead of printing some piece of classified information in the newspaper, some NYT 'journalist' handed said info to al-Zarqawi, instead.

Sounds like treason to me.

But the only difference here is they shouted it out for the whole world to hear to make money from it, instead of delivering it in a darkened back room for money.

How can I prove that this doesn't put anyone's life at risk? Well, I suppose I can't.

Anwar Sadat (1918-1981)

You've tried Times Select, now try:

New York Times Extra Absorbent Edition!

Yes, it's the lastest edition of the America's most revered newspaper of record, delivered right to your doorstep every day.

The difference is this edition is printed on a continuous roll of fluffy, quilted two-ply paper, four inches wide and softer than that patch on the top of Paul Krugman's head !

Perfect for, what's the discreet term?

 --Bathroom perusal.

Each edition is conveniently perforated. Don't turn turn the page, just tear it off and use it for it's really good for!

It's the newspaper that fits your life.

The New York Times. Read it and wipe.  

sophistry. You know d*mn well that this is a problem for the United States and our allies. You know d*mn well that foreign intelligence services will be reluctant to give us aid and information for fear it's going to show up on the front page of the NYT. You know this and you engage in some sort of word game.

I sincerely hope you and/or your family are not the victims of some terrorist act that might have been prevented had a foreign service given us some information. Oh, wait you don't care about "might be" or what someone might or might not do, you are interested in the game.

I read the entire article. I must admit I found your characterization of the article to be odd and a bit of stretch. The I read the article keeping your perceived tone of the story in mind as I read it.

And well, I did not see anything in that entire article that even REMOTELY fits the characterization that you gave it.

If the title of the NYT article didn't make it obvious that you were in fact referring to that article, I'd have thought you put up the wrong link.

The article gave you a subatomic particle belonging to an acorn and you turned into an oak tree forest the size of Texas. Very dishonest IMO.

...for journalistic outlets who get fed information like this to publish it?

Having had an opportunity to think about this for most of the day, I believe that what the Times did here is sufficiently egregious that it justifies what would otherwise seem an excessive step.

Whoever leaked this material to the Times is a serious danger to this country's ability to work with allies to defend itself. Speed is of the essence in apprehanding the perpetrator(s), for there is no telling what else they know, and how soon they intend to make it public.

I think this calls for the sort of raid by the FBI in which agents come in, seize the computers and every kind of paper file, and haul them out of the building in boxes before any of it can be destroyed.

Conducting this sort of raid on a major newspaper would be a controversial act, one sure to stimulate much huffing and puffing from the fourth estate.

Yet these revelations are so obviously damaging to the country, and so obviously dangerous to our allies, and so obviously capable of curtailing future cooperation of the sort revealed, that I don't think the public can be stampeded into thinking that such a raid was a bad thing.

These revelations go to the core of how we defend ourselves from those who mean us harm. We gave assurances to foreign leaders, many of whom will now face serious domestic problems, that these arrangements would be held in confidence. Whoever leaked them has done us great harm, and has exposed certain Middle Eastern leaders to grave personal danger. Hosni Mubarak's predecessor was assassinated by the Islamic Jihad for activities not much nore favorable to the West than what Mubarak did here.

This cannot be allowed to happen again. Whoever did this is still at large, capable of releasing still more information of the same type. He or she or they need to be arrested and confined yesterday.

The usual process for extracting source information from journalists is long, slow, and subject to every kind of game. What happened today is a matter of urgent national security that justifies processes that would ordinarily not be invoked. I hope they will be.

There is still time today.

...to line the kitty boxes. When the Internet got big, it got hard to justify buying that filthy rag, so I had to switch to absorbent clay litter.

1. The perpetrators already work at the FBI, so apprehending them will require far too much paperwork, or
   
   
2. The perpetrators work at CIA, so apprehending them will require far too many Plame-style outings.

The Times would face a difficult question if something like you suggest were to go down: will they get more Pulitzers by protecting their existing moles and continuing to publish their leaks? Or by burning them and getting the scoop on the raids?

Yeah, it'd probably be treason to give Al Qaeda classified info.  But that doesn't make it treason to perform any act which might result in Al Qaeda's learning classified information.  

Some relevant differences between the two cases include intention, motivation, additional consequences, and additional considerations.

But thanks anyway.

And you know d*mn well that such invective and hyperbole will get you nowhere.

This might (might!!) mean that foreign governments will be less likely to perform actions that their people would disagree with.  It doesn't mean that Germany won't share information with us on, say, terrorist attacks, so there's no reason to bring that point up, except to instill fear.

And finally, the reason I was insisting on "material harm" (the way I conceive of it) is that treason is a serious charge, and you need to show actual harm in order to levy that kind of charge.  The only thing I've seen here is potential harm.  And even if this harm is likely, it don't make it treason, yet.  That's all.

You're a piece o' work.

I find people like you and the likes of "Armando" and Markos over DailyKos fascinating. The quintisential caricatured-stereotypes of your  respective movements. Definitely two sides of the same coin.

Wow.

Nick my friend our concept of patriotism and responsibility is so 1940-ish. The idea that a newspaper would actually treat such a revelation as of potentially great harm to America is an outdated, laughably middle-American value that it simply has no meaning among the bi-coastal literati that above such mind-numbing concepts.

You have to open your mind to the broader view, the view seen by the kind of people who are jounalists, performers, acadmics; the intelligensia of America. Unlike you, they understand that when the world comes crashing down they will be spared; they are afterall the logical, natural leaders of us all.

Gimme a break. These people with one name, like Armando and Madonna and Kos and Bono — and while we're on Bono let's not forget Cher — are all big shots. Like most two-named people, I'm just some squib working in the dungeons here at Red State for my meager rations of pizza and beer. So don't get me tied up with those "formerly known as" types. I don't even have one of those magical signs to be known as.

By the way, are those your initials, or are you one of those one-name dudes too?

I'm gonna have to speak with management about this.

I sort of ignored this whole thing except for Nick's take because I like his nick and I like his posts. I also learned (after those national debt posts) to give his thoughts an extra take. So, I didn't read the NY Times article - until your post.

And I gotta say, I think you're nuts. How can one come to any other conclusion than that Nick wrote? The Times made it as simple as possible: they thought the Germans (especially the previous gov't) were political allies, the German gov't did something pro-American that helped the war effort, and so the Times tattled so as to embarrass the Germans.

you're a piece o' work.

No pizza for you.

"The Times made it as simple as possible: they thought the Germans (especially the previous gov't) were political allies, the German gov't did something pro-American that helped the war effort, and so the Times tattled so as to embarrass the Germans."

First of all, it's not "thought the germans...", it's "knew and know". Regardless of any silly narratives to the contrary, Germany and "Old Europe" ARE and will continue be our allies. No news there. Germany, France, Italy and the rest of Europe have always been and will continue to cooperate on intelligence...particulary in the GWOT (more so than many realize). And while I didn't know it for a fact, I'm not at all surprised that Germany (and some our corrupt middle-eastern "allies") gave some clandestine help in Iraq. And it probably goes deeper and further than we know. So because my view of Europe is a bit different and more nuanced than the standard conservative one, these developments confirm my (and that of many, many others around the world and in the U.S.) view geopolitics. No shock effect for me.

Where I differ is the last part that seems to fabricate some malicious intent on the part of the Times. I never took it as "tattling" nor did the article seem to have that tone or agenda. It all seemed very "matter of fact" to me. It's a story that the Times deemed newsworthy. I don't think it was, nor do I think the Times printed it as a "gotcha!" kind of article. To think that, you NEED to be ideologically or politically predisposed to believe the Times would do something like before even reading an article.

The Times is a status-quo NEWSPAPER not a liberal advocate or enabler of Left-wing misinformation. You want a true blue "liberal" paper? Read the Village Voice. If the NYT has a general center to center-left bend, particularly on social issues, who cares. If you want a paper that soley exists to put a conservative bend on everything, read the Wash. Times. As for the rest from the "conservative" Chicago Trib., Boston Globe and Dallas Morning News to the "liberal" LA Times, Philly Inqu. and WaPo, I think they do just fine with news AND as a poster mentionned above, any of them would have run with the story (for it's really worth) if they had it first.

I view the  NYTimes as a good (not great) news source that is a bit overrated (especially by the Right) in terms of influence. The editorial page is a bit stacked to the Left but does have some conservatives. I'm more paragmatic when it comes to media and give TV/Radio news much more weight in terms of informing people.

I have my problems with Times and pretty much any paper for that matter. But it's not an ideological or political-bias problem. It goes much deeper and it's not that easy to explain.

The Times is a status-quo NEWSPAPER not a liberal advocate or enabler of Left-wing misinformation

Well, geez, why didn't you say so? We could all have saved a lot of words and time.

We English majors used to run soup kitchens in the Journalism School, to help the poor benighted buggers out, and to help them slowly learn the numerous errors in the AP and NYT style manuals.

Consider it charity for the slow and intellectually impoverished.

Sorry if I'm lock in step on the whole "Menacing Big Bad All Powerful Liberal NY Times" mantra.

But it allows me to avoid letting my mind turn this:

German intelligence agents obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein's plan to defend the Iraqi capital, which a German official passed on to American commanders a month before the invasion, according to a classified study by the United States military....In providing the Iraqi document, German intelligence officials offered more significant assistance to the United States than their government has publicly acknowledged...On Thursday, the German government released a new report that acknowledged that German agents had provided some intelligence but suggested it was very limited.  

into this:

""German intelligence services helped the United States invade Baghdad, and will now pay the price," the Times effectively told intelligence services worldwide. As it has in the past, the Times published classified information to bolster its latest attack on U.S. interests."

Yes, there's clearly treason involved, though you folks here seem to differ with us in where the treason was.

The rest of us, and the vast majority of the rest of the world, believe the treason occurred when President George W. Bush got up in front of America and deliberately told a pack of lies to rush with no planning into a pointless, directionless war that's achieved nothing, cost at least one trillion dollars (one trillion dollars!  do you have any idea how much that is?), crippled tens of thousands of Americans (and well over a hundred thousand Iraqis) and killed over two thousand Americans (and tens of thousands of Iraqis).

We believe that these criminal, impeachable, treasonous offenses were compounded by the profiteering of the Vice President, Richard Cheney, though Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR.  We believe that Cheney has personally profited to the tune of tens of millions of dollars through no-bid contracts, shoddily executed, priced at a massive premium to free market rates in Iraq and in New Orleans.  While not a treasonable offense, it is an impeachable offense, and morally despicable since he was profiteering over the bodies of dead Americans.

Accordingly, we see the actions of the New York Times as a patriotic act to reveal more of the workings of this criminal government that has brought such devastation to this country and to Iraq.  The German intelligence service participated in the debacle of the Iraq war; they need to be exposed as accessories to this crime.

The sooner we can impeach and imprison President Bush and Vice President Cheney for deliberately causing the deaths of over two thousand Americans, the sooner we can get a real leader in place, one who will take America's military force and use it to ruthlessly and relentlessly hunt down Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the murderers who attacked us on September 11, 2001, killing thousands of Americans and causing billions in damage.

Bin Laden lives to this day, laughing at us over the airwaves, killing innocent people in London, Madrid, Bali and elsewhere.  A real leader like Winston Churchill would never have rested until Bin Laden was dead and his evil forces killed or scattered;  six months after 9/11, President Bush, a man who has never risked his life for his country, says, "I don't know where Bin Laden is, and I don't care."

Perhaps this insight into our motives will clear up our behavior for you somewhat?

As we've heard all this crap about a million times before, and it didn't make much of an impact then.

Blam.

personal invective, I won't.

I will address the main issue of your post.  That President Bush committed treason by acting on intelligence that EVERY western government AGREED was true.

You are a complete, total, top-to-bottom, inside-out, fool and an idiot.  You should either be on anti-psychotic medication or moved to France.

That, by the way, wasn't invective, it was fact.

I note you cut off my ability to post almost immediately, even though I followed your rules to the letter.  The uncivil language in the post following merely unscores the point.

Thousands of Americans dead and a trillion spent is a fact that's too big for you to ignore forever.  You can hide here but eventually the real world will inexorably catch up with you.

It would be unconscionable enough if it were simply a terrible mistake.  Considering that the evidence is now very clear that the President misled the nation by ignoring the intelligence that was presented to him and manufacturing threats where none existed out of whole cloth, this is now a matter of treason.

I'm sure you're going to cut me off again -- and I have better things to do at that.  

But think of this:  can you name one thing that your President Bush achieved that benefits America? (Sorry, I won't accept "attacking the liberals" or synonyms like that.)

Put his failure to achieve against the five years of devastation, death and destruction this country has experienced and think -- doesn't America deserve a President that will protect the country and not needlessly put its children into harm's way?

I'll name you two good things, not that I'm required to do that.

1. John Roberts
   
   
2. Samuel Alito

Plus, your construction of the posting rules is as dim as your construction of reality.

Now this time, stay gone. This is not optional.

Blam.

to be out in a few weeks, as the article and Kowalski also noted.  The guy must be a traitor, or at least clueless as to why we keep secrets - or maybe chanlleing the Administration.  Anyway, we hate the NYT.

Trainor's bio is here, http://www.usmc.mil/genbios2.nsf/0/6c81d322c9de7f7d8525707c005241e7?OpenDoc
ument&Click=, and his 11/05 exchange with LtGen (Ret) Odom on policy in Iraq is here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec05/iraq_11-21.html (under "Experts debate withdrawal").

Your Kung Fu is weak. The book is co-authored by Gordon, the NYT agent, and Trainor. Nothing in the article suggests that the revelations in the article are in the book. They may well be, but the article states that the materials here were 'developed during research for the book.' When materials are "taken" or "excerpted" from an upcoming book, they usually say so because that suggests that the book is full of juicy stuff. The verbiage used here almost makes it sound like Gordon is out free-lancing with IP he collected for the book, but did not use.

Using Trainor to snark what the Times did here was really, really, greasy on your part. Your posts are not normally this sleazy. What happened that would make you want to play "See you Republicans, a General was in on it" with such obviously harmful revelations? Mubarak could be killed because of this article. For sure the Germans are going to think twice before they ever help us again. Here's an idea: why don't you throw a weak, cheap partisan shot of glee at these developments?

trying hard to be honest this time.  Guess the latent sleaze just oozed out.

To be honest, I share your concern about the disclosure of this information, particularly with respect to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as Mubarak and others are of course targets of radicals.  It's just from that what I read, it seemed pretty clear to me that this was coming to the NYT from Trainor and from the book.  

You say that Nothing in the article suggests that the revelations in the article are in the book, but I just happened to read a hard copy of the article in IHT on my way into work this morning, and in the seventh paragraph on the first page there is this prominent mention:

Germany's secret and more substantive role is documented in a classified U.S. military report disclosed in Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," which is to be published in March by Pantheon books in the United States and by Atlantic Books in Britain.

 I had not looked before, but now see that this is missing from the online column - given this omission, I can see where you are coming from.

The hard article does not specifically accredit the Egypt and Saudia information to the book, but that was my assumption given the first mention concerning Germany.

Look, I think I have made it very clear that I care alot with how things are going in the ME and with our dealings with the Muslim world generally.  I share your concern about the risks of damage to our interests from disclosure of sensitive information, including risks to our partner - and think you are right on point to question that.  If you want to criticize the NYT for its role you are perfectly entitled (even though I have a different take on the MSM than you), but from my perspective - as the article has a clearer attestation to the book - it just seemed like you should really be going after Trainor and the book, and was simply trying to point that out.

Would it change your view one iota if you knew that all of this came from the book (which is still unclear)?

I have no glee over this, and would beg you to reconsider your perception of this as weak, cheap shot.  Certainly, as I have protested before, it is NOT partisan.  Alien maybe, but not partisan.

... probably be treason to give Al Qaeda classified info.  But that doesn't make it treason to perform any act which might result in Al Qaeda's learning classified information.

Let me make sure I understand your position. If the New York Times prominintly discloses classified fact X on its pages, that might result in Al Qaeda learning classified information?

Yeah I know, that's such a no-brainer, it's obviously a rhetorical question.

How can I prove that this doesn't put anyone's life at risk?  Well, I suppose I can't.

And, I submit, neither can the New York Times. Yet, knowing that the nation has troops in harm's way, knowing that the government has been trying to keep this a secret, knowing that by leaking this information their informant is breaking the law ...

... And having no way of knowing whether or not revealing this information jeopardizes lives or an ongoing/future mission, the New York Times still publishes this stuff. I seriously cannot fathom why this does not disturb you.

PS: I caught your little reference to "Plamegate" ... you do know she was last on assignment outside the country more than five years (the legal definition for "covert") before America nearly sank beneath the waves because her name was exposed, do you not?

And now, you're whining that two years is more than enough time for a national security operation to be exposed by the Press?

If you want a paper that soley exists to put a conservative bend on everything, read the Wash. Times.

Well now, isn't this ironic? Have you ever considered the idea, that maybe, just maybe, we Conservatives/Republicans perceive the New York Times just the same way you Left-Wingers perceive the Washington Times? That it solely exists to put a Leftist bent on everything?

Here's my problem, ZTN. You're clearly very well to the Left of the Center and yet you come around here loudly proclaiming yourself to be a "moderate" or "Independent" when it is plain from everything you write that you're far from it. Mary Frances Berry claimed to be as well and cited the fact that she was a "Registered Independent" as proof of it. But she was being no more honest than you are.

No true "moderate" would dismiss the concerns of pro-lifers and good faith opponents of same-sex marriage as mere "yammering" (which you have done - upon which Leon went ballistic on you), as if their concerns were completely illegitimate. No true "moderate" would completely fail to see any Left-leaning bias in CBS, CNN, the New York Times' reporting but clearly see the Conservative bias in Fox News and the Washington Times' reporting.

Add these traits to your reflexive rush to blame "Both Sides" in every single situation (whether or not both sides truly are to blame), and the tendency to offer such GOP "leading lights" as Olympia Snowe, Christie Whitman, John McCain, Lincoln Chafee, etc. as Republicans you admire (but would never vote for so long as there's a viable Democrat alternative) to prove you Right-leaning bona-fides and you, ZTN, are the picture-perfect definition of faux-moderate, a fake.

You are a Leftist. Admit it. There's nothing wrong with being a Leftist and we won't take you any less seriously if you come out of that closet.

That's precisely what we complain about when we on the Right talk about media bias. It's not that we are opposed to Leftists being reporters. What we have a problem with is the reporter putting on the same "Independent" and "above-it-all" masquerade you're trying to put over on us here. In other words, we don't mind if there's an ideological or political slant to a reporter's work - so long as the reporter has the honesty to admit it, or just simply acknowledge that he/she has an opinion on the issue at hand.

You're not fooling anyone.

And neither are they.

... what is your understanding of what  Conservatives/Republicans are referring to or talking about when we say that the New York Times is biased to the Left?

And now you've gone full circle, accomplishing that which you accused Nick of from the onset, putting words in the mouths of others.  I missed where education was criticized in general, or even journalism education as a concept.  What was criticized was modern journalism and the modern institutions of journalism education for being the biased schools of intellectual fraud they are.  

I believe most the bloggers at this site, including those you accused of criticizing education, are highly educated and proud of their educations.  Just because they hold modern journalism in such low esteem doesn't mean they don't value education.  It merely means they too ran into plenty of liberal activists on campus posing as journalist majors and understand why the profession ranks at the very bottom in public respect.  

Of course, you can just continue to pretend all red staters are uneducated hayseed hicks who have no appreciation for education and the reason why the public as little to no respect for journalism is because they're all too stupid to appreciate the superior intelligence of journalists.  I think those are two concepts which are, in effect, taught in journalism 1010 at most universities.

You are defending the practice of a Newspaper publishing knowingly leaked classified information then?  Can you please explain?

50+ days where Abu Gharib lead the front page.  Yeah, really balanced.  /puke

Rik

..nothing is.The inquiry should be short the punishment swift and the times closed..period..

...who has taken Journalism 1010, the high-level, four-digit prerequisite for Journalism 2020.

I know this is a conservative blog, but surely you realize that Bush's Iraq policy is a failure.  William F. Buckley says so.  My friend's daughter is being deployed to Iraq.  This is just terrible and senseless, but it is being replayed all over our country.  I am sick about this, because I have no power alone to do anything about it.  Together we can make a difference.  Now that Bush's approval rating on the handling of Iraq is only at 30%, we need to push Murtha's plan:

To immediately redeploy U.S. troops consistent with the safety of U.S. forces.  

To create a quick reaction force in the region.

To create an over- the- horizon presence of Marines.  

To diplomatically pursue security and stability in Iraq

The people need to "speak up" against continuing this war.  It is over.  Iraq is close to or in a civil war.  A civil war is not our fight.   We can pray about this issue, but, if you read the Bible, you will see that God uses people to right wrongs and make changes in our world.  Please write to everyone you can think of and push them to end this madness.  We need to bring our troops home before we lose anymore of our true treasure - our men and women.

And I really mean that, but why would you put that comment in this thread? It doesn't fit. It's a threadjack, pure and simple.

I also have to ask why you'd choose a Republican forum as a place to rally for a Democrat's idea, in opposition to a Republican President.

I mean, c'mon.

1. Our Iraq policy is a long way from failure.
   
   
2. If you think so much of Buckley, live by all of his opinions and write him in for every office for which you vote.
   
   
3. Your friend's daughter joined the service. It's her job!
   
   
4. Sorry to hear about your illness.
   
   
5. Thankfully, since the Clinton Administration, we do not run this country on opinion polls.
   
   
6. Murtha is an old fool elected by a small fraction of the number of people who voted for Bush.
   
   
7. Your four items sound like how napolean ultimately dealt with Russia. The abbreviation is spelled "retreat". Great for the French and the White Flag Party as led by John "The Koward" Kerry.
   
   
8. Our "true treasure" is our liberty and freedom paid for by the sacrifices of countless men and women.

And, your kind make me sick.

I have nothing to do with this guy!!!!!!!!

:-)

'...differences between the two cases include intention, motivation, additional consequences, and additional considerations.'

Did you say this straight-faced, I wonder? What could possibly be the differencein those examples?

Here's another one for you. Let's say Sleeper Cell Joe. Got his hands on some info. Lest he be tried, convicted and shot for

treason or espionage by handing the info to al-Zarqawi, all he needs do is publish a newspaper report about the information?

How do you know anyone's intentions or motivations? And what additional consquences do YOU think oocur when our nation's secrets are disclosed for political gain? Here's a hint; Think of the worst possible scenario and you have it. No one intentionally reveals national secrets with out the intent and motivation of harming this country.

Additional considerations? What are you, a lawyer? Only a very poor lawyer would say something that silly.

have said to me in reverse.

Besides, if you read further in my post, I mention right-leaning newspapers like the Chicago Trib., Dallas Morning News and the Boston Globe. I also said that I think they do just fine at reporting the news as do the left-leaning papers like the LA Times, Philly Inqu. and yes the NY Times. I have no problem with leanings. I do take issue a bit with unabashed, unyielding partisanship. And it's usually on at these moments that I tend to comment. I was having a similar spat with the Left over the Cheney shooting and DuBai deal...though that last last one had me in disagreement with many conservatives as well...like Mark Davis on the radio.

I signaled out the Washington Times because it seems more deliberate and in your face...kinda like the Village Voice on the Left.

As for the comments about prior posts on my views on social issues (which I can't remember at the moment), I AM more socially libertarian than most conservatives. I'm also more fiscally libertarian than most liberals. Foreign Policy views are more muttled.

Over at Centerfield Blog via the Centrist Coalition Site, we say you know your a moderate when both sides accuse you of being the other in disguise.

Most of the 1010 classes are followed by 1020, and then followed by 2010.

I sense some biases in papers. We all do.

Editorial pages aside where bias is fine, the "news" biases are not that pronounced and I don't take issue with them at all. Someone in Chicago actually had to point out to me that the Tribune was biased to the right. I didn't see it until I forced myself to look for it and even then, I was like "Big Deal". It's just news.

The only bias I see that is consistent in all papers is a penchant for displaying a lot of effort on petty news, drama and scandal. These same papers do a less well on meaty issues that risk disrupting the status quo of the powers-that-be as a collective group.

What absolutely DO NOT buy is the idea there is a partisan agenda hiding in newspaper stories. News is news like it or not.

During Monica-gate, those stories dominated headlines. Some of the biggest stories to push public opinion in favor of the Iraq War were started on the front page of the NY Times. You can't pick and choose when to point out bias.

Besides, if you read further in my post, I mention right-leaning newspapers like the Chicago Trib., Dallas Morning News and the Boston Globe.

The Boston Globe leans Right ..? You see why I (and quite a few others on Redstate) find you extremely hard to take seriously?

As for the Washington Times, I agree with you that it leans clearly  Right, but I completely disagree with your contention that it leans Right any less aggressively than the New York Times (and Boston Globe) leans Left.

The only difference is that the Washington Times is frankly open about it's leanings, just like the Village Voice, and completely unlike the New York Times.

Over at Centerfield Blog via the Centrist Coalition Site, we say you know your a moderate when both sides accuse you of being the other in disguise.

That's doesn't make much sense. National Review gets attacked from the Right quite often, as does the Wall Street Journal editorial page ... it does not by any means make them "moderate" or "centrist".

to Haaaavaaad or Columbia or any of hundred other schools you could do worse than learn your ethics from FNC. At least at FNC the majority of the time they have people from both sides on to discuss issues.

The big problem with FNC, as with all the cable networks, is that with an almost infinite amount of time available they still budget 5 minutes on a subject and that's the end of it. Because the cable news operations are not 24 hour coverage, they are 15 minute coverage for 24 hours.

And O'Reilly is a bozo.

...you accept that it was helpful for us to receive the information from Germany. It evidently came through a backchannel and had to be authorized by someone, while Germany officially was maintaining an anti-invasion stance, which they had to do for domestic political reasons, and it's understandable for them to have done so.

Now, someone in our intelligence network basically ratted their German counterparts out, by blabbing to some reporter with Pulitzers in his eyes. (Unless the leak came from Germany.)

So if you were a German intelligence agent, wouldn't you think twice about ever passing useful information along to Americans again? If you were a German government official, wouldn't you be blazing mad at the embarrassment, and wouldn't you make absolutely sure your intelligence services never took that risk again?

I don't give a squirt of [lemonade] for the NY Times, we all know what they're in the game for. But whoever leaked to them is a real bad guy. Say what you will about Germany, but they are an important ally, and they got kicked in the teeth.

I may have mistaken it for the other Boston paper. Can't remember the name of it (Herald?) I don't read it. But I've heard it refered to that way. So I mispoke. It's mistake of names not skewed viewpoints.

"That's doesn't make much sense. National Review gets attacked from the Right quite often, as does the Wall Street Journal editorial page ... it does not by any means make them "moderate" or "centrist"."

That's not the same as what I meant. What I'm referring to is a person, like me whose views strattle the divide, tends get heat from the more strident voters to his Left or Right of being a fake or a troll or a closet Lefty/Righty. I don't really find this treatment offensive but I do find it a bit unfortunate and frustrating.

Examples, I've been accused by Thom Hartmann (Left) of having "drank the Kool Aid" on an economic policy issue. On another occasion, he didn't let me debate on my objection to the widespread hostility to the Dubai deal. Ed Schultz (left) cut me off about Bernard Kerik. Jerry Doyle (right) told me I was "on drugs" when I criticized him for avoiding the points made by a conservative guest about Saudi Arabia. The other day Mark Davis (Right), real nice guy, had a nice exchange about the Dubai deal which he objects to. Another day we spoke at length agreeing and disagreeing about a real unspoken divide spanning both parties over several important issues like immigration and trade policy where the real divisions are between classic liberal globalists  and classic conservative protectionists. The loyalty of traditional coalitions of rank and file voters are strained on these and other issues yet most people wrongly rationalize their views to conform.

Of course, it's a well-accepted modal principle that "is" implies "can."  There's no dispute here.  I'm sorry for trying to be precise in my reply.

It all depends on what "is" is. I guess we have to check with the comeback kid for that.

My argument was a bit condensed, so let me put it this way:

I don't think you mean to say that anytime someone does something that results in classified information falling into the wrong hands, it's a crime.  If, for instance, someone orders some covert act to be performed and, as a result (perhaps the operation failed, or perhaps it was an unavoidable consequence), the enemy learns the identities of several of the agents involved.  This may be tragic, but it's not treason.  The person who ordered the covert operation performed may be responsible for certain bad consequences of the operation, but it doesn't seem to be treason, since he (presumably) thought that ordering the operation was the best course of action to take.

Now, compare this with the newspaper case.  Of course, there are glaring differences between the two.  But, at least one similarity involved is the intent: in neither case is the agent out to harm the country.  (And, needless to say, that doesn't apply to your Sleerp Cell Joe case).  Even if the NYT did harm the country (and that's a separate point), they did so because they thought that the information was worthwhile.  You're right that I don't know the NYT's intentions, but I do know that the NYT isn't interested in harming the country for no reason, for example.  I'm pretty sure we can all think of cases where revealing some national secret would be wortwhile (many people on this board seem to think that re: Plame, but of course, there are other considerations there as well).

I'm not a lawyer, I'm not sure what you were getting at with the last comment.

I still don't see (at all!) how this information is harming our troops.  I suppose I can't prove it's not, but you're the one who has to prove that it will (if you're one of the one's crying "treason", that is).

As for the Plame thing, I mentioned it kinda tongue-in-cheek.  I didn't drag it out front-and-center because I honestly don't think it's a big issue.  I'm being consistent; I don't think this is a big issue either.  But people who aren't consistent on those points at least run the risk of hypocricy (although people here do make rather valiant efforts to justify some, but not other, leaks of classified information).  See "poetic justice as fairplay."

How's that germane?  I'm not redefining words, or equivocating, or anything like that at all.  I'm saying that I got called on my use of "might" when I could have used "will", and replied by saying that I was merely being precise.  If you believe that something will result in consequence x, you also believe that it might result in consequence x.  I used "might" instead of "will" because I was being precise, but I have no truck with being read either way.

You're being ridiculous and you know it. You seem to think you're smart because you think you've caught us in a Catch-22 situation ... reveal national security secrets to prove that revealing national security secrets is harmful.

However, whether you like it or not, the fact remains that neither you nor the smug elitists at the New York Times are qualified to determine whether or not revealing this or that information is harmful to the nation's security interests. So, I could not possibly care any less that you, the great omniscient doxasticpirate cannot see how this information is harmful to national security (which includes the troops on the field).

You do not know whether or not by revealing this, you compromised an agent (foreign or otherwise) or a mission. You do not know whether or not this frayed an important relationship between the American and German Intelligence services. All you know is that this information was classified as a secret, that this being confirmed common knowledge was judged by those qualified to make these judgments as not being in the United States' best interests.

But the New York Times thought different ... and that's supposed to impress us?

How exactly is publishing the NOC list on the front page any different? The very same arguments you're using to defend this can be used to defend that. After all; the editor of the newspaper can say that he cannot see (at all!) how publishing the NOC list damages National Security.

Your comments couldn't be further from what I was trying to say.  Maybe the Plame swipe or threat of hypocricy or whatever are red herrings.  The point is the burden of proof.  You have it, I don't.  I'm not asking you to show me classified information to prove that harm was done or anything like that.  All that I'm saying is that it's ludicrous to make me prove that harm wasn't done, rather than ask you to prove to me that harm was done.  

[Perhaps I've misread you.  Perhaps you're merely wringing your hands and think that the NYT probably shouldn't have published it.  In that case, we have no disagreement here.  But if you think that they're traitors, then you have to prove it.]

How is this different from publishing the NOC list?  What a silly question.  I suppose the editor could say that he cannot see the harm in publishing the list, but he'd be wrong.  We could prove it to him pretty easily.  In this case, how could an agent have been compromised?  What regime would go after them?  

Whether harm was done isn't a pertinent issue at all. The major issue is that the New York Times knowingly sought out and/or publicly revealed information the nation's security organs were trying to keep secret - it matters not whether or not any harm directly resulted from it.

Let's extend the NOC list issue a bit; what if the editor had gotten hold of a NOC list and published that list because he determined that there's no harm in it.

Does it make a difference if the list he published was a fake? A dummy list to fool Since it's a fake list, no harm was done, right?

compare this with the newspaper case.... at least one similarity involved is the intent: in neither case is the agent out to harm the country.

In the case of the New York Times, that proposition is increasingly difficult to accept. If once in a blue Moon, the Times happened upon "newsy" classified information and published it, we could chalk that up to grab-the scoop journalism.

But that is not what we observe. Either the Times is aggressively pursuing harmful classified information for the purpose of leaking it, or they have formed a partnership with a person or persons unknown who has access to a fairly deep pool of such information, and the two parties together are on a mission to discredit and harm the United States.

There has just been too much of this, over too short a period of time, for this to be serendipitous "fact finding."

That harmful intent is present is further suggested by the rest of the Times' agenda, as expressed in its news pages and editorials. The people running that newspaper have a serious problem with the Administration, its policies, and in fact with all Republicans and all their policies. Were their expressions of discontent limited to the usual thundering editorials and blatantly slanted "news" coverage, that would be one thing. But it does not stop there. Whether by hook or by crook, the New York Times acquires classified information that undermines the policies being pursued by the elected government of the United States, and publishes that information knowing that its revelation can and will cause serious harm to the United States, to its allies, and only coincidentally the current Administration. But so eager are they to harm the current Administration that they ignore the serious long-term damage that their sneering "journalism" causes for the United States and its people.

To accept your premise that after witnessing multiple occurrences of this behavior over a period of only months, we may safely conclude that they are merely practicing aggressive journalism with no intent to harm, we must also accept that the people doing this are oblivious to world politics, to current events, and to basic protocols observed between nations.

The alternative is to dismiss you as a non-serious trifler who is either proceeding from extreme naiveté or a similar closeted malice.

Which is to say that I think you are selling us buncombe, and you know it is bumcombe, and you are doing it because you approve of discrediting the United States and its allies as a means of visiting harm upon the current Administration. Which opinion I am entitled to after you observing you Do The Weasel like Chubby Checker for lo these many notes.

I guess the question we'll come down to at the bottom is, "What is the NYT's motivation in running these stories?"  And, of course, none of us can know for sure.  But your theory that they are in favor of wanton destruction of our image as well as our military if it discredits the administration just doesn't square up in this case.  You sum it up this way in the end:

Which is to say that I think you are selling us buncombe, and you know it is bumcombe, and you are doing it because you approve of discrediting the United States and its allies as a means of visiting harm upon the current Administration. Which opinion I am entitled to after you observing you Do The Weasel like Chubby Checker for lo these many notes.

Now, let's read the "you" here as someone who is so intent on discrediting the administration that they are willing to do real damage to the nation.  Now, let's say "you" dig up a story that states that the administration that you thought launched a largely unilateral attack on Iraq actually had many more "silent" partners than they admitted.  Running this story wouldn't make the administration look bad; it'd make them look far better, since it would be apparent that they were able to make their case behind the scenes and get a greater coalition behind them then it seemed.  

Do you run this story, even though it helps the administration?

If not, then I think we need to keep looking for that evil intent...

I assume that you meant to say in your second paragraph that the editor had gotten hold of a fake NOC list.  Thinking (correctly, strangely enough) that no harm would be done in publishing the list, he goes ahead and does it.  So, the idea is that the editor is (supposedly) guilty of treason, even though he didn't produce material harm.  Am I understanding you correctly?

I'm inclined to say that no treason occured in that case.  There was no intent to harm the country (although the editor had strange ideas about what might constitute harm), and there was no actual harm done (because, happily, the list the editor received was fake, even though he didn't know it).  That's just my intuition.  I would defer to a lawyer at this point, I suppose.  Maybe "attempted treason" ought to be a crime to explain cases like this.

I also have a fallback position: even if you're right -- even if there can be treason when there's no malicious intent and no actual harm done, we can still discriminate these two cases.  Afterall, in the case where the editor published a fake NOC list, his actions were still more reckless, since what he did could easily have led to a great many deaths if the list was what he thought it was.  The same does not hold in this case, since I don't see any obvious chain of events that would cause deaths in this case, assuming the report is true.

They couldn't stop the allies from helping us then, that's just history. But they can certainly take steps to see to it that our "allies" don't help us too much again in the future.

As to the revelation helping the administration, you are first and only person I've heard so far postulate that idea; and I seriously doubt you will be joined by anyone else. The NYT reports certainly didn't draw anyone's attention to that proposition.

Close but no cigar. Nice try though.

Well, look, I'll admit that the game of "guess X's intentions" is a very hard game to play.  The only way I know how to play it is to observe a pattern of actions and find some underlying motive that best accounts for all of these actions.  And, like I tried to say above, I don't see how you'd plausbily line up the recent relevations in this way.

They couldn't stop the allies from helping us then, that's just history. But they can certainly take steps to see to it that our "allies" don't help us too much again in the future.

I'm not sure how this fits the "guess the motivation" game.  This doesn't even fit with the "discredit Bush at all costs" theory.  It only fits with the "Down with America!" theory -- that is, the NYT is concerned with nothing but the downfall of the US.  And, while I suppose that's a possible motivation, I should hope that we can leave it off the table.  I mean, "Down with America if it means we can make fun of Bush!" is uncharitable enough, but if you take the Bush=Bad factor out of it, they're just plain psychopathic.

As to the revelation helping the administration, you are first and only person I've heard so far postulate that idea; and I seriously doubt you will be joined by anyone else. The NYT reports certainly didn't draw anyone's attention to that proposition.

Well, I suppose I'm not qualified to say how many people made that connection.  I mean, I'm obviously a poster from across the aisle, and I  made that connection pretty quickly.  I suppose it's possible that the NYT editorial board didn't realize that posting this would entail that our coalition was larger than they thought, but then -- you still need to imagine that the NYT thought that this claim would discredit the administration.  And, even if you put aside the part where it seems obvious that this claim helps the administration, it seems harder still to see how it casts them in a bad light.

[No doubt, the NYT wouldn't be excited about the positive light that this casts the administration in.  I didn't read the editorials, so I don't know if they mentioned this there and how they spun it.  But, of course, this is all beside the point.  That the NYT didn't go to lengths to explain how good it is for the administration, they still ran this story that entails that the war had more support than was publically acknowledged.]

to you is a game. But people may very well die, large numbers of people, if this 'game' goes wrong.

Regretably I am not prepared to leave the Down with America motivation off the table; I think it is a very real motivation among a significant portion of those on your side of the aisle. They are prepared to do and say whatever is necessary to damage Bush. There are several possible explanations for this:

a) they simply don't believe that the threat is real;

b) they believe that they are so smart that they can "fix" any damage done once they get rid of Bush and stop Republicans from remaining in power;

c) they believe that the American nation is in fact the worst thing to ever happen to mankind and it deserves to be "put in it's place" and let the UN control us;

d) all of the above.

My vote is on (d).

"What is the NYT's motivation in running these stories?" And, of course, none of us can know for sure.

But we are all entitled to form an opinion. My opinion is that they are leaking these stories out of malice. I am entitled to publish my opinion on the Internet, and I have done so.

...your theory that they are in favor of wanton destruction of our image as well as our military if it discredits the administration just doesn't square up in this case.

And now you have posted your opinion on the Internet.

Praise Gore.

I believe the Rosenbergs sincerely thought that Communism was the ideal system of government and that bringing it to America would be the best thing that ever happened to the US.

They probably had the very best of intentions.

But they still committed treason. In other words, treason has nothing to do with one's beliefs, and all to do with one's actions.

And finally, I want you to understand that your opinion and the opinion of the editors of the nation's newspapers is completely irrelevant when it comes to national security information.

The fact that neither you nor the New York Times' editors can see how this harms National Security is completely irrelevant. Somebody (someone authorized and qualified, with access to far information than you/Gail Collins) else could ... that was why it was classified.

So, it really is not a defense for the New York Times to say it saw no harm in publishing classified information and therefore what they did is not wrong. It is not the New York Times' place to determine that.

That's why your argument all too easily applies to the New York Times publishing the NOC list on the front page - it can simply claim to have seen no harm.

I've been talking about two things here: harm and intent.  I've been arguing that the Times didn't have bad intentions (up the screen a bit) and didn't seem to cause any bad consequences of their act (here).  Or, more precisely, nobody has come close to proven that they've actually caused any real harm here.  Even if you concede here that the NYT isn't evil, there's still the question of what harm they caused.

Now, making something secret means that someone doesn't want the information to come out.  In a perfect world, it would mean that someone thought that the information's relase would harm the nation.  Maybe someone even thought that this particular release would harm the nation.  Even if I grant you that much, it still doesn't mean that this release did harm the nation.  And, once again, you have the burden of proof if you're the one crying treason.

Well, yes, we've bost posted our opinions on the Internet; praise to the gods of TCP/IP.  And, if I'm reading this discussion correctly, one of us is right and one of us is wrong.  I suppose that I've given some arguments that support my opinion, but that's okay.

Yes, you have been so logical and persuasive that I have had my beeber stuned but good.

So which cylinder of the right wing attack machine will you be filling with inert gas next?

It depends on whether or not you define their manifest obsession with undermining the Bush Administration as not being bad-intentioned.

The editorial board obviously believe that America would be better off if Bush were no longer President. So if they publish classified information just so they can damage the President, they can honestly say they never meant to harm the nation ... in fact, they can say they believed that by publishing this classified information for the express purpose of getting the President to resign, they were actually serving the nation's best interests ...

In other words, intent/motivation means absolutely nothing in this case. The question is whether or not, knowing that it was illegal, they solicited the leaking of and disseminated classified information. It doesn't matter if they did it for "World Peace" ...

Furthermore, your focus on harm done is quite frankly idiotic. It means that, a CIA agent turncoat that unwittingly hands over a fake NOC list to the North Korean government and he is caught, he should be let go since there was no harm caused ... because the NOC list was fake.

I'm sure that you'd agree that it would be a great deal more serious if some real NOCs were compromised by that list. But if the NOCs concerned are immediately withdrawn and no harm befalls any of them, does that mean that our turncoat should be let go?

In addition, your demand that someone has to prove that harm was caused by the New York Times' publishing of this information is just as idiotic. What if the proof of this would reveal more information that is better kept secret?

The end point is this; is the intentional revelation of classified national security information a crime? Yes. And it doesn't matter if you have the best of intentions or if no harm was caused.

Period.

Note that I am not saying that the New York Times has engaged in treason ... there is a First Amendment after all. But I do take issue with this idea of yours that harm is necessary before one can be charged of treason.