Batfink's Beep -- 02-02-06

Snake eyes

February 2, 2006

There was a new blow struck today in the to-the-death battle the leftist press is waging against the Bush administration, and it's a doozie. CIA Director Porter Goss spoke to the Senate Intelligence Committee about the manifest damage to national security that the leak of the highly classified NSA Al Qaida surveillance program by the New York Times has caused. Goss openly and specifically called for a federal grand jury to be empaneled to interview journalists to see who is behind the leaks, making explicit the possibility of Times personnel being grilled under oath on potential charges of espionage.

Now, this shouldn’t be a particularly surprising development, really, given that the leak was unquestionably a big blow to national security, and who better to discuss the ramifications of it than the head of the CIA. But the possibility of having their allies at the Times dragged before a grand jury clearly wasn't an easy thing for the Democrats on the committee to contemplate; and they showed just how empty their quiver is with what they came up with in response. In probably the most garish example of whistling past the political graveyard in recent memory, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia actually claimed, for example, that it was likely that the leak "came from the executive branch." That took plenty of nerve and more than a little willful blindness, since we know the administration did its best to keep the Times from publishing the story, and in fact succeeded in delaying publication for a year. If he believes that, then he ought to be glad to let the chips fall where they may, I suppose. But Rockefeller still managed only second place in the 'most lame defense' category.

The undisputed champion was Russ Feingold, who claimed (get this...) that it was Bush who had revealed the program, discussing it in his State of the Union address “in front of the whole world.” Sure, Russ – that’ll work: because nobody thinks that the front page, above the fold article in the New York Times that revealed the program to everyone was in any way public.

It has to be some sort of testament to the integrity of this administration that the biggest scandals of his second term, second term scandals being something of a political tradition in America, are scandals of infamous behavior by his political opponents, up to and apparently including treason. And if anyone at the New York Times gets tried for that crime, it may just finally put the brakes to all the crazy fever to “get” Bush. If a thing like THAT doesn’t make the left finally realize that they got snake eyes, nothing will.

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