Hugh, on his radio show Friday, hit the nail on the head. Bill Keller is providing the response script through his friendly interviews. There are now a couple dozen Keller parrots out there, most of whom we will see on today's talking heads shows.
Marvin Kalb sounded like a Keller soundtrack. Even though the WSJ did print the story after the NYT (WSJ is not clean), Gigot asked hard questions and Kalb just had the Keller speech lines.
Kalb couldn't provide an original, coherent response to the question of what public interest was served by the NYT publication of the story.
Kalb also showed that he, like most of the writers in the MSM who stick their toes into the water of national security don't have a good handle on the issue.
The MSM writes about this war and the methods used to fight it like they are preparing a term paper or a research 'assignment', and not the dicey, tricky and dangerous ground it is. Many seem to write for the prize and when we are attacked again, they'll write about the attack without seeing any responsibility of their own.
Why do I say this? Because Kalb, 3 weeks after the NYT SWIFT story was printed , still repeats the Keller line that the there is no evidence that the SWIFT program has been harmed!
Hey Bill, Eric, James (and Marvin), do a Google and read more papers than the NYT.
Another thought to the folks in the MSM. The assets that, in the past were called intelligence, are now the BATTLEFIELDS. War is about the placement and utilization of your assets to capture or destroy the opponents assets. (Limbaugh calls it "killing people and blowing things up".) He is even data with this phrase.
In this new age of technology, where the enemy can give orders a second away and has IMMEDIATE contact to the rest of the world, many of the processes, procedures and assets that passed as intelligence assets in 1990 (or did not even exist) are now Battlefield assets. They are not intelligence assets. Documenting the SWIFT program they way the NYT did was giving away deployments and movements.
Money transfers, cell phone calls, emails, internet posts and encrypted messages in photos on free internet sites are all assets, weapons and vehicles used by the enemy in this war. We destroy air craft carriers and transports before they get into battle so their assets can not participate. We bomb supply lines in a war so that the participants don't have the ammo, tanks, food and fuel.
The NYT has not figured out that the new technology is the primary supply line for terrorists.
This is why MSM'rs like KALB, KELLER, RISEN and PRIEST will get us killed. They are still stuck on the Civil War.
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