There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.
It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001.
The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked - how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.
Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.
In the years since 9/11, we have seen American soldiers abuse, sexually humiliate, torment and murder prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq. A few have been punished, but their leaders have never been called to account. We have seen mercenaries gun down Iraqi civilians with no fear of prosecution. We have seen the president, sworn to defend the Constitution, turn his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant.
We have read accounts of how the government’s top lawyers huddled in secret after the attacks in New York and Washington and plotted ways to circumvent the Geneva Conventions - and both American and international law - to hold anyone the president chose indefinitely without charges or judicial review.
Those same lawyers then twisted other laws beyond recognition to allow Mr. Bush to turn intelligence agents into torturers, to force doctors to abdicate their professional oaths and responsibilities to prepare prisoners for abuse, and then to monitor the torment to make sure it didn’t go just a bit too far and actually kill them.
The White House used the fear of terrorism and the sense of national unity to ram laws through Congress that gave law-enforcement agencies far more power than they truly needed to respond to the threat - and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.
Hundreds of men, swept up on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, were thrown into a prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, so that the White House could claim they were beyond the reach of American laws. Prisoners are held there with no hope of real justice, only the chance to face a kangaroo court where evidence and the names of their accusers are kept secret, and where they are not permitted to talk about the abuse they have suffered at the hands of American jailers.
In other foreign lands, the C.I.A. set up secret jails where “high-value detainees” were subjected to ever more barbaric acts, including simulated drowning. These crimes were videotaped, so that “experts” could watch them, and then the videotapes were destroyed, after consultation with the White House, in the hope that Americans would never know.
The C.I.A. contracted out its inhumanity to nations with no respect for life or law, sending prisoners - some of them innocents kidnapped on street corners and in airports - to be tortured into making false confessions, or until it was clear they had nothing to say and so were let go without any apology or hope of redress.
These are not the only shocking abuses of President Bush’s two terms in office, made in the name of fighting terrorism. There is much more - so much that the next president will have a full agenda simply discovering all the wrongs that have been done and then righting them.
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
“We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably.”
Hmm. Seems like a good start would be for the author of this article to acknowledge that the majority of American voters did have the ‘wisdom’ to vote in someone other than George Bush. The fact that the 2004 election election was messed with has been well verified…
“We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably.”
No, the New York Times and the Democratic presidential candidates can do more than hope. They can loudly and forcefully call for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney for the crimes listed in this editorial (among many others). But, with the exception of Dennis Kucinich, they refuse to do so.
Good starting point on the criminal activities of the current regime, but too bad they didn’t go the extra step and call for impeachment, war crime trials, or some other form of accountability and punishment for those guilty. Or mention the complicity of the majority of Democratic ‘lawmakers’. Just more blablabla.
IN A NUTSHELLGAME
–What We’re Up Against:
http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2007/08/political_art_of_the_week.html
This is a classic example of NYT sanctimonious hypocrisy — beating their little chests, wailing piteously, & pretending to be horrified by what they actually have helped to bring about, & have implicitly enabled every step of the way.
The NYT helped Bush steal the 2000 election; then they told everyone to “get over it and move on.” Then they helped build him up as a “hero” after 9-11. Then they provided support and cover for his blatant fearmongering about Iraq and the fake “War on Terror.” Then they helped him get away with his ludicrous blaming of “flawed intelligence” for the fact that there were no WMD after all. The NYT has helped steer public attention away from Bush’s crimes, occasional editorials like the present one (which is generally true, as far as it goes) notwithstanding.
The NYT has NEVER asked the hard questions of Bush, & instead helped keep the public confused & in the dark about the USA’s terrible crimes in Iraq. It’s frankly disgusting that they dare (on the very same day as they hire the noted liar & war criminal Bill Kristol as a new NYT columnist!!) to pretend to be critical of the very crimes they’ve helped bring about.
Last day of 2007… where the heck has the NYT and the rest of the media been for the past 5 years!?!? And, as others here have noted, where are the public demands of impeachment, censure, condemnation of the bought congress? Blah blah blah indeed!
One doesn’t need syrup of ipecac anymore.
“…President Bush and his advisers panicked…:
The only time the President and his advisors were panicked was during the first few hours after the attack, when they didn’t know (presumably) what was going on. I don’t think there was much panic after that, except for fear for their stock portfolios, among the opportunistic nabobs surrounding the Prez. Those calculating minds were at work brainstorming the possibilities of the emerging situation before the Trade Center dust had settled. It was the American people and their rudderless Congress who let themselves be herded, like terrified chickens, into the new order of things.
The Times hired Kristol while publishing this editorial???!!! I’m speechless. Why do we even bother to take any note of them at all?
Nice editorial.
The title is wrong though. It should be called ‘Looking at Fascist America’.
Incomprehensible how that scum in the Dark House can not be exterminated.
Where is the ‘National Pest Patrol’ to smoke out all that filth in the Oral Office?
I guess it’s going to be like Hunter S. Thompson said. He knew way more than
anybody could ever imagine and he knew what happens in America ‘Right’ now.
He called bush et al. ‘…fucking Nazis’ and hit the nail with his assessment. Sad that
we have to go through all this repuglicon shit without the moral support of people
like Thompson or Vonnegut. Nothing written even remotely as poignant nowadays,
but I guess it doesn’t really matter to the citizenry of the biggest shit pool anybody
has ever made out of the ‘White House’.
All those fascists need to be rounded up, covered with fuel and burned alive.
Like so many of the innocent people those mass murderers killed in the last five years.
I know, the thought alone could worsen my Karma, but then, Buddhism is about Love
and Compassion. Love and Compassion for ordinary people like You and me leaves
unfortunately only this choice (or a ‘clubbing squad’ like the ones for little seals) to
prevent even greater tragedy.
Obviously the time gets cold feet now, kind of late though. We would have needed that
earlier.
Look at the whole picture. The hi-jackers in the formerly prestigious ‘White House’ write
themselves changes into the constitution that will prevent legal actions against them
in case they decide to leave this shit pool.
That’s like good ol’ Adolf Hitler would have come up with a few changes more regarding
the ‘accountability’ of the Nazis and their enablers.
It didn’t work because Germany lost the accompanying war, as much as those miserable
creatures in the ‘White House’ are loosing their so called ‘war on terror’ an infamous phrase
invention that shows once more how war horny this whole country is.
You want bush to be removed from the ‘White House’?
Just make the people believe that bush is going to take their guns or their SUV’s away,
then You will see some action. A dying planet is not enough to get worried about. It’s all
about the ‘Pro Life- Pro Torture’ movement, the tax cuts for the filthiest, squandering the
welfare of the United States of America with the Military Industrial Complex and their ‘energy’
buddies.
There is nothing more to add as everybody should know by now that those people in the ‘control room’ of this country give a shit about its citizens. Only the dumbest of the militaristic bible thumpers
(5%?) believe everything is alright and the bush junta is the greatest administration this country has ever seen.
Man, if I would be American I would disappear in shame in some hole, much like Saddam, who shared that location for a similarly reason.
It is the shame that bush had put on US. Only a public execution of all those murderers will reinstate
the faith and the hope that America is indeed the ‘greatest Democracy of the Universe’.
The only way to get there is consumer boycott. If You can’t pull that through because You are fucking
addicted to shopping like to heroine, you deserve to disappear from the face of the earth.
Other than that I wish You a hypocritical ‘Happy New Year’ knowing that it will be
everything else but that. Sorry.
“Looking at America” was a wonderful editorial and I’ve often thought in recent years how this country was beginning to have very little resemblance to the America I love. The flag has even been co-opted and become a symbol of an ideology so perverse and twisted that I would no sooner display it than a Nazi flag. I commend the editorial writers of this piece and would like to thank you for putting the thoughts expressed in “Looking at America” into words in the New York Times.
That said I also read with astonishment and disbelief the news that the NYT would be hiring William Krystal. In my view that would be analogous to hiring Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. I have no gripe with NYT expressing different points of view but Mr. Krystal’s ideology is not just an alternative view it is a dangerous, delusional and perhaps psychotic view of the US in relation to the rest of the world. There is nothing truly “conservative “about any of the neo-con brain trust but his ideas are absolutely radical and out of touch with reality. This man in particular has done so much damage I can’t imagine the NYT giving him a platform on which to do more. Please don’t hire this man!!! If he comes on board, as much as I respect your organization I will stop reading and taking as many others with me as I can.
9/11 was an inside job.
there was no panic on the part of the bush administration.
this was all planned long ago.
wake up america!
google “Freedom o Fascism”
As a former NYT forums participant, I read far too many of its jello-like editorials over the years, so it is heartening to see that perhaps they are finally growing a spine. Kudos, and please do keep it up.
Howsoever, if America does have a future in which historians look back honestly on these times, without any doubt they will deem our failure to impeach any of Bush’s criminal cabal, and especially The Decider himself, as the most important reason why our Noble Experiment died.
RichM–I can’t add much to what you said other than it makes sense for a newspaper that has Thomas Friedman to also hire William Kristol and proves why this editorial in no way reflects the true sentiments of the NY Times’s owners–Actions speak louder than words.
As disturbing as this realization may be,
the only thing I know is,
that I don’t live under the Romans ‘right’ now,
nor under Attila, Ottoman or Pharaohs
and not under ‘Hitler’ yet.
All those megalomaniac ‘Heroes’ and their
disgusting boot lickers are now nothing more but
dust, mixed up with the excrements they
constituted.
Truly one of the best editorials the NY Times has run in years. It made me wonder why this lesson in moral values clarification comes out on the last day of 2007, contrasting so sharply with the much more subdued condemnation of Bush’s torture and detention without trial policies that is sporadically voiced on the campaign trail by the Democratic presidential candidates.
Why in the hell hasn’t the Dems’ DC beltway brain trust figured out (like the Kerry campaign in 2004 couldn’t) that torturing people and stacking naked Arabs in homoerotic piles at abu Ghraib is a “moral values issue” being handed to them on a silver platter by the blood stained hypocrites of the so-called born again Christian right?
Then, just when I’m thinking this might be a bell weather of good things to come, now I’m told that Bill Kristol comes on board in ‘08 to provide Times readers with better fairness and balance alongside David Brooks, William Safire, Thomas Friedman, et al.? Give me a break.
Maybe the powers-that-be at the Times think adding more right wing demagogues to their op-ed stable will bolster the spine of their editorial page when it comes to speaking truth to power, or that the right wing media machine will go easy on bashing them if more right wingers are just put on the payroll, giving Karl Rove’s talking points yet wider mainstream circulation.
If that’s the reasoning, I think they’re sipping the same Kool Aid as the folks who think buying off the Anbar shieks will cure the insurgency. You sure as hell won’t find the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Times reciprocating any time soon.
All the News That’s Fit to Print?
Next thing we know, the nation’s newspaper of record will bless us all with yet more of all the opinion fit to reprint under the by line of folks like Michele Malkin, Cal Thomas, or Ann Coulter.
God, how I miss Molly Ivins!
Bill from Saginaw
The NYT just hired Kristol. Let´s have nothing more to do with them.
This is the paper that withheld the NSA spying on Americans story until after the 2004 election talking about fair and balanced?
If they want fair and balanced, why don’t they bring in Jim Hightower to counterbalance William Kristol? Oh, I forgot, they are blind in the left eye.
IRON HEEL by Jack London: “You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.”
This editorial is a slap in the face to all Americans who have long had the wisdom to see that our political system is made up of political whores pimping to corporate whores so the media whores can have something to talk about.
Hoa binh
Yes, if America is going to be able to face itself in the mirror, it will have to right its wrongs. Here’s a beginning for your next president to set America on the right course:
1. Publicly admit its crime of violating the UN Charter, which prohibits aggression against sovereign states. (Tip: forget about ‘winning’)
2. Ask the UN, without any US participation, to assemble a peacekeeping force to replace US troops within Iraq to assist toward a political solution to the problems caused by the invasion, and to be fully funded by the US.
3. Ask the UN, again without US participation, to assess war reparations against the US for the illegal invasion of Iraq. (Remember: forget about ‘winning’)
4. Make a commitment to acquiesce to an international task force charged with eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, and conducting regular inspections to ensure ongoing compliance from all nations.
There - that would be a good first few steps toward restoring the kind of values the US claims to hold.
Happy New Year everyone!
George Bush and Company didn’t panic. They just took advantage of the situation. They had already written the basis of the Patriot Act prior to 9/11.
By the way, thinking that the New York Times is a liberal publication is like saying that Hillary Clinton is a Democrat.
If the New York Times (or any other mainstream media) was honest and brave enough to speak out against the war in a timely manner, we wouldn’t be in Iraq right now.
Of course, we can’t let peace and justice concerns slow down the economic machine. More war, more guns, more money. And as long as the masses are entertained by video games and TV while we continue to be ignorant of issues, I predict more of the same in 2008 (and beyond).
Can we just have less war is 2008?
George w Bush: “Full steam ahead.”
New York Times: “Yes Sir Captain.”
so it goes…
This is a stunning editorial, a compelling, indeed shocking, argument against the re-election of right-wing neoconservatives to the executive branch in 2008. Unfortunately, the use of the corporate “We” as the subject of the penultimate sentence of the final paragraph reeks with the cynicism and rank moral insincerity of a Bush lawyer opining on the limits of torture. It is tragic that this editorial didn’t appear on December 31, 2003.
Much of the assault on American democracy, ideals and international image which the New York Times deplores in today’s piece was happening 4 years ago and the “We” of the Times editorial board and the company’s management knew it was happening then. For example, by the paper’s own admission, The Times knew long before the 2004 national elections that President Bush was using “…his powers on his own citizens, authorizing the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, wiretapping phones and intercepting international e-mail messages without a warrant…” but the Times chose to remain silent until the election had passed evidently acquiescing in the Administration’s argument that national security matters were at stake. I submit that act of journalistic cowardice did as much to enable a second Bush victory as any missteps by the Democratic opposition or the Swift Boating and other successful campaign tactics of the Republicans.
The editorial concludes with an aspiration that in 2008 the American people will have the renewed wisdom to choose a president with elemental wisdom and decency. That being the case, the country’s leading national newspaper of record has a unique responsibility to publish fully and completely what it refers to as the “shocking abuses” of this Administration as they become known. As the Times eloquently argues, to do so is nothing less than a matter of national security because “…there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.”
I submitted these comments to the Times this morning, but its editors refused to post it under its Readers Comments. I wonder why? Perhaps it was too offensive to those who have just evidenced their willingness to add William Kristol to its roster of right-wing Op-Ed columnists.
Eric Thorp
Claim to moral purity invalid and hypocritical:
“this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement”
Too bad the NYT didn’t have these emotions years ago, when they were still part of the GOP propaganda machine!
To paraphrase The Times: We can only hope that this time, unlike 2001-2007, American voters will have a press with the integrity, principle and decency to fulfill its duty of honestly evaluating government policies and informing the electorate. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.
The hope is, unfortunately, a faint one- this editorial forgoes yet one more excellent opportunity for The Times to explore its role in getting us into this mess.
Brian Concannon, Joseph, Oregon
RichM: “This is a classic example of NYT sanctimonious hypocrisy — beating their little chests, wailing piteously, & pretending to be horrified by what they actually have helped to bring about, & have implicitly enabled every step of the way.”
And don’t forget Judith Miller’s Iraq WMD lies under the NY Times banner.
For a broader perspective of how these “humanoids” have been and are currently working us over, spend some time at this site:
http://www.sonic.net/~taryfast/destruction.html
To the editor:
A fine editorial. Thank you.
“…and at the same time fulfilled the imperial fantasies of Vice President Dick Cheney and others determined to use the tragedy of 9/11 to arrogate as much power as they could.” (from, December 31, 2007, Editorial, Looking at America)
And yet, one of the “others” — Bill Kristol, will become one of your inner circle columnists. Whoever penned the editorial needs to keep a sharp eye as well as a sharp pen.
This N.Y.Times editorial looks like the tipping point.The right wing press do not wish to appear to be rushing for the exits,but are beginning what will become a stampede in disassociating themselves from everything to do with Bush.You will also see the Murdoch press in such a move, that by the end of 2008 you will have the impression they have always been avid supporters of the Democrats.Ruperts reputation has always to be backing whoever looks like being the winner.Principle,truth,integrity have never played any part.
The New York Times should get immunity along with the telecoms; they were just “panicky and ideological”.
Its not Bush, its not the NY Times, its not the Republicans, its not the Democrats.
The American people have not stood up in large enough numbers to right these wrongs. Too many Americans have accepted what the Bush administration has done… from people at the highest levels on down to the average person on the street.
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably.
We can only hope? The mainstream media editors are trying to limit the US citizen to a role of powerless spectator, their agenda being to maintain elitist rule over the people.
But the power is in the hands of the people, always. The people serve themselves best by shifting their exchange/association away from the power centers and toward their local communities. The most visible payoff is in the greater value of local production. But the payoff also includes a restrained federal executive, restrained corporate executive, etc.
Localism reduces the negative fallout of elite decisions forced on the people. Today the negative fallout is well understood to have reached catastrophic proportions. All sectors are generally affected but just looking at the energy sector we see decades of energy gluttony where the waste (acculumated in both conversion and consumption) is well beyond 90%.
But it’s even worst than one might first imagine. Not only are Americans wasting 90+% of energy, but the economic activity driven by that very small fraction of utilized energy is itself over 90% wasted. The implications are stark. When the people decide to make the change, they will realize today’s prosperity on 15 hour work weeks and 1/100 of the energy input. This is achieved by cutting out 90% of the military activity, 90% of the litigation, 90% of the healthcare overhead, 90% of the pharmaceuticals, 90% of the transport sector activity, 90% of the agricultural activity (this includes petrochemicals and heavy machinery) and 90% of the academics, retail, food processing, advertising/marketing, entertainment, consumer electronics, housing/building, heavy industry, finance, and the civic sectors.
Take a nice long vacation, US citizen, for the sake of the biosphere and humanity, and do your necessary business with your neighborhood small farmers, craftsmen, and merchants (and keep your taxable income below the threshold).
You hire Kristol, the biggest warmonger going, and then lecture us about Bush? Editor, heal thyself!
“The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked - how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.”
Huh? What American ideals? Terrorism began here in 1492. The worst genocide in the world in the last five hundred years continues on American soil today. Clearly after five hundred years of genocide, America values genocide. Religious Dominion results in genocide and remains a center piece of American values today. Bush is merely exporting time tested American values. Racist beliefs are a core American value. Racist genocide is as American as apple pie. It is the source of American wealth. It looks like the New York Times has not yet accepted American Indians as people, instead, they are just like animals in the woods, to be hunted and extinguished with no overt recognition.
The hiring of Bill Krystol is in preparation for an all out assault on the Democrats in the coming elections.
As for the article, two major points are missing:
1. mea culpa,
2. impeachment.
Kind of pales in comparison to attacking your own country and killing 3000 people to get support for Wars of Aggression that kills another 4000 Americans and over 1 million Iraqi/Afghan civilians. But hey, too many critters on the planet, so what the hey.
I think this is partly about discrediting the CIA, not that they need any help, and partly a diversion. Probably there are plans to outsource the CIA functions to Blackwater. I see we are giving them a big contract to fight the War on Drugs in Afghanistan. Ha ha ha. Thats moving into CIA’s territory. No drugs, not enough money to fund the black ops. Too many skeletons in the CIA closet so the leaders may want to do some house cleaning.
“Out of panic and ideology…”
Panic my eye. If 9/11 wasn’t an inside job, I’m going to go out into a cornfield and swing a baseball bat, secure in the knowledge that very soon a stadium will spring up around me and I’ll be hitting the winning home run in the seventh game of the world series.
Yeah, nice editorial. It should be subtittled “Hedging our bets.” So the NYT now grows a national conscience? Yeah, whatever. Where was that conscience when (S)Election 2000 illegally put these criminals into office? Where was that conscience when Judith Miller spun her tall tales that precipitated the Iraq invasion/occupation? Where was the NYT when (S)Election 2004 returned these criminals to power, aided, we now discover by the NYT killing stories detrimental to cheney*/bush*? And unfortunately, the list of the Old Grey Lady’s journalisted collaboration with cheney*/bush* continues. Sorry NYT, too little and too late.
Colleen, you have it exactly right.
So many Americans pass their time enjoying the riches their successive governments bring to them at the expense of the rest of the world, and then complain about how sad they are for all those oppressed people.
Where are the guts of the country?
Nice editorial. Mr. Average Joe American’s response? “Sound’s like democrat party talking points..But yeh, Bush sucks!”
Like a home-owner who leaves piles of trash in the back yard and then complains about a rat problem, the American People will cling to their ignorance, er, “innocence”.Believe me, I know.I work with them every day.I have predicted almost all of Bush’s hundreds of crimes before they happened.It has never occured to them that I couldn’t possibly predict his actions unless I knew his motives.In spite of being right, I’m seen as a “conspiracy theororist”.Only three years ago (I keep a diary) most Americans thought that torture was okay, that America had a “right” to empire and that middle east oil was “ours”.Probably half still do.
Kristol??Has he ever been right about ANYTHING? Why not appoint a rapist to a womens shelter? I mean, there’s two sides to everything, right?
Not only did the NYT editors not look into the mirror, but they blame the whole debacle on Bush and his advisors and let everyone else off the hook. But we now know that the ostensibly centrist Democratic leadership, a fortiori Pelosi and Rockefeller, suborned, misprisoned, aided, abetted and connived at these horrific abuses of basic constitutional and human rights. To this day they steadfastly refuse to repeal the congressionally granted impunity, , to restore our rights, to hold open hearings, or to hold the guilty accountable. The Democratic presidential candidates and the vast majority of the media are similarly hypocritical and craven. Hitler and Stalin, admittedly far more brutal than Bush, could not have gotten their way without the support of their subordinates and acquiescence of most of the population, and it is the same in the US today.
I don’t know why the NYT is picking on BushCo. The real criminals are those that voted BushCo into power a second time.
WTF: cheney*/bush* was not voted into power a second time–at least not legitimately so. In (S)Election 2000 Florida was an electoral sewer. In (S)Election 2004 Ohio added to the stench. But you are somewhat correct, the American public allowed the electoral deception and corruption not only once, but twice. And again, where was the New York Times for both? It didn’t take an idiot to see the danger of allowing cheney*/bush* anywhere near the seat of power. It also didn’t take an idiot to see something was very wrong in both Florida and Ohio. Try as it may, the NYT will never be able to wash the stench of collaboration off of their hands.
What a fantastic article…..until I came to the last paragraph: “We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity…..”.
WHAT????? The writer’s IQ must be examined. But wait, it is NYT, the handmaiden of status quo.
Thanks to the two party duopoly and sellout to big money, it does not matter who “we elect” as the president. More precisely “we” do not elect anyone - the MSM, the establishment, the big money, they do (unless as the last pony trick it is the supreme court).
Of course it would be an entirely different story if “we” could elect Dennis Kucinich as the President. But as I already said “we” do not elect anyone.
I like the content of above column except that the carefully worded indictment of George W. Bush has cleverly omitted any culpability by the Republican party. I suggest that the entire piece be re-written with George Bush’s name omitted, and where his name is used, insert “Republican Party.” Yes, Bush is a low functioning puppet frat boy who has disgraced this country. But the Repulican Party, that “Greed club” populated with despicable despots, hiding their insecurity and inhumanity behind the fortunes they’ve acquired illegally, immorally, and unethically, is the real villian. Our country will only be fit for honest men when the last conservative has been strangled with the entrails of the last republican.
“We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the Presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.”
Now that’s chutzpah.
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will not be denied year-old information on illegal NSA spying, withheld by the so-called “paper of record”- on the request of George Bush until AFTER the election where he squeaked by on voter suppression and VOLUNTARY NEWS SUPPRESSION BY THE NYT.
We can only hope that Americans will not entrust the awesome powers of the Fourth Estate to these traitorous collaborators in the coming year.
Fool us once, er twice, er three times - Oh never mind!
(Thank God Common Dreams doesn’t have video posts.)
HA!
And Another Thing: We don’t elect our Presidents.
It is no small embarrassment that in our great ‘democracy’ we are now shown up by countries like Iraq, Pakistan & Kenya. They all are having difficulties with conducting fair elections, as we are in the US. But they all actually elect their Presidents & Prime Ministers by DIRECT ELECTION, which we are still not trusted to do here in the land of freedom.
Note the utter lack of the term “Electoral College” in the media since about Dec. ‘04. We still have to put up with the shame of Electile Dysfunction. However this remnant of the 18th Century skews the ‘08 election, we will only hear about it and how it should be abolished for about 4-5 weeks AFTER the polls close next November. Then the issue will be put back in cold storage for another 47 months.
One simple question : Why is NYT still in business ? Compared to the citizens of many other countries , Americans are notoriously malleable and truant when voting with a ballot . Voting with a wallet is considered to be an un-America activity.
That’s why NYC and the rest of MSM are not only still in businesas but hansomely so.
In reading this well-written Editorial that documents much of the felonies, war-crimes, and constitutional destruction by Bush & Cheney, Inc. (that the world has observed), I could not wait to get to the conclusion: impeachment is due & necessary to bring the ship back on course and not let precedent settle, prevail, and, become future policy.
Pssssssssss ….. the tire went flat… big-time.
If all that is listed in this Editorial does not constitute “high crimes and misdemeanors”, please explain why in a future Editorial. Explain why these leaders will not be held accountable for their illegal, immoral, unethical, and, unconstitutional behavior that we all know has happened.
If big brother steals from the cookie jar and gets away, might not little brother who is watching do the same?
Henry M.
Boston, MA
What does the New York Times see when it looks in the mirror?
It can be argued, that we have President Bush and not President Kerry, because of the New York Times.
It can be argued, that Judith’s lies about Iraq helped enable the Iraq war, because of the New York Times.
This would be a wonderful editorial, however the newspapers’ history of duplicity, and it’s recent hiring of Kristol, render this editorial as nothing more than a two-faced attempt at protecting it’s own image.
Hiring a neo-con while decrying the neo-cons is a cute trick, a new approach of shticking it to the sheep, but Judith is gone and the people are no longer fools.
Ramsay
I guess the editorialist forgets the drum-beating of that murderous dwarf Thomas Friedman, it’s lying Bushwhore Judith Miller, the quashing of the spying on all Americans because they were asked ever-so-kindly not to spill secrets before the 2004 farcelection.
The NYT merely publishes the demurrals of a few columnists as part of the charade that either speech or the people’s will matter to the publisher, his pals & their advertisers & mass murdering corporations.
Ah - not much forgiveness for the NYT here, but come on - this is an ardent effort, no? except for the punch it’s aimed at delivering, but finally pulls. There’s a remedy for high crimes and misdemeanors committed by the executive branch, and it’s not called “election.”
Why is it that azgirl8 and people like her believe that 75 percent of america doesn’t believe the “official story” of 911? It’s not even hard to believe. It’s a lot harder to believe ridiculous conspiracy theories about 911. This type of nonsense is what absolutely DESTROYS the credibility of the left.
Let’s think straight for a moment, if I may be so bold. The NYT didn’t torture anyone, the Republicans did. The Dems didn’t do it, Bush did it. Now, how do we get rid of power behind Bush and more like him?
Two alternatives: incrementalism or radical change. Many thought a socialist revolution would happen before WWI and many socialists thought they could stop the war with a general strike. They failed. In the sixties, we talked of revolution, and we had a social revolution, but not a political revolution. The iron grip of the corporations has proved difficult to break.
In the last century, generations of progressives attempted to win change. One great success was the New Deal. From that, we got social security and some other progressive changes that the right wingers are still trying to repeal. After WWII, the big changes in standard of living came about because of union organizing. The corporations have pretty much undone that.
Now that we are in the second Guilded Age looking back, what has worked? The revolutions didn’t win much. The organizing of the New Deal and the unions achieved a lot.
Just a thought.
No, it WASN’T hard to believe, till we came out of the fog and put our thinking caps back on. BushCo stonewalling an investigation to begin with (an investigation he promised on the night of 911), is enough for me. No oath, no recording, no notes of “testimony” by Bush and Cheney? Don’t the authorities always split up witnesses to question them? I guess they didn’t have their standard ’state secrets/national security’ excuses polished up yet. The official story has never been proven, nor anyone prosecuted. The only PROOF we have is a pile of dust. And pools of molten metal burning for weeks on end. HUH? The fuel was burned up in a flash. And, we sure have spent a lot of money NOT to catch BinLaden. I have no set “conspiracy theory”, just lots of unanswered questions that some refuse to answer.
What hypocrisy!!!They are part of the machine.
The failure of the Congress to pursue impeachment of Cheyney and Bush will be a precedent for illegality on the part of future White House occupants. The present occupants have flaunted their complete disregard of and for our constitution. The press should lead the way in providing informing the country of the magnitude of their acts and the price that the country is being called upon to pay. The politicians in Washington too often spend too much time looking toward the next election.
raster wrote: cheney*/bush* was not voted into power a second time–at least not legitimately so.
No arguments there. The point of my contribution is that the 45% or so Americans that did vote for Bush in 2004 are criminals. If not guilty of complicity in international and federal crimes, guilty of lacking intelligence and common sense.
NYT re-writes history.
Iraq was about OIL. NOT terrorism.
The 911 tragedy was used by Bush (the American people) to secure supplies of oil, remove a threat to Israel, payback for a threat against papaBush and the global strategic aim of installing military bases in the region.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._presidential_election,_2004
total who voted in 2004
122,267,553
voting age population in the US
221,285,099
http://elections.gmu.edu/Voter_Turnout_2004.htm
bur some people were ineligible to vote because they commtited felonies etc. which leaves the voting eligible population at:
202,746,417
So only about 60% of those in the voting age population actually voted in 2004
Approximately half of those who voted, voted for Bush so approximately 30% of the people of voting age eligible to vote in America voted for Bush.
A group like Move on is so reviled by the right..because they get new voters and thats why Obama is so intereting as a candidate… because he might pull in new voters.
And thats why people look so carefully at the negatives of a candidate..because if there is enough hatred people will come out to vote against a candidate.
But underlying all of this is that Americans are not aware and are not voting.
I personally am thankful for the NY Times editorial, because they have confirmed what I have been saying for several years. Now when people ask me, “why have you left America?” I can just hand them that editorial.
Ddell, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Kristol and editorial honesty don’t mix.
Mistakes were made on all fronts: Bush and Co. lied, the MSM went along with it, as did most of the other politicos, and so did a lot of the American people.
We’re all complicit and we all need to admit our mistakes, instead of simply saying it’s all the fault of the other guy.
Maybe the first thing we need to do is say to ourselves: “War is wrong, and that’s the bottom line, so let’s not listen to our leaders when they try to tell us it’s a good thing.”
Sure, sometimes (very rarely) war is a necessity, but even when it is, it’s a horrible necessity, one to be undertaken with great reluctance and sadness, so when one of our leaders tries to glorify it as a noble cause we should know right away that we’re being conned. And painting the Iraq War as a noble cause is exactly what Bush and Co. did. And so many of us fell for it.
quousque: “…Howsoever, if America does have a future in which historians look back honestly on these times, without any doubt they will deem our failure to impeach any of Bush’s criminal cabal, and especially The Decider himself, as the most important reason why our Noble Experiment died.”
John Conyers has been sitting on the impeachment bill for 18 months now. Listen to his interview at Democracy Now! where he ADMITS that he won’t go forward on it because FOX news will spin Cheney and Bush as the victims in all of this.
http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2007/12/20
Agree with all the comments about NYT’s dishonesty. With no mentioning of its own culpability in the stolen election, advancing false pre-war intelligence, and otherwise enabling the entire neoconservative agenda, this editorial comes as way too little, way too late.
Also, the piece’s failure to call for impeachment hearings, and its attribution of the Bush cabal’s activities post-911 to “panic” rather than a premeditated grasp for political control and financial consolidation, renders the entire editorial worthless.
If the NYT’s can’t say “2+2=4″ who in the mainstream media will ?
yes, this from the homenest of libby soulmate judith miller, and now as you guys point out a source of income and power for warmonger kristol!
still if such a neocon haven as the NYT writes this it means they have the next neocon successor in the bag. they must be thinking hillary is the likeliest and safest for them, but there are so many others, giuliani, mccain, and soforth and soforth
the NYT is looking for integrity like cheney/bush are looking for democracy
New Year’s eve Party, Denver CO 2007
It sure looked like America
All colors of skin, religions and attitudes.
With most people content not to cross the lines.
What will be new about 2008?
When going up against concentrated wealth/power, direct democracy is the best weapon.
It is sure comforting that at 11:59 of the year 2007, the Times has developed a sense of national morality. This is, of course, right after they hired the greatest, most ignorant, singly the most wrong war-monger to their editorial staff, William Kristol. Am I the only one who finds this incongrous and repulsive? Mr Kristol thought the invasion of Iraq was our greatest decision of foreign policy, that torture is good, that lies to cover up a legion of failures in Iraq were justified, that bombing Iran is an even greater idea, that Abu Garib was not a problem, and that displacing 15% of the Iraq population from their homes is good, that reducing a thriving Christian population of 1.2 million under Sadam, to around 250,000 or so today, left to fear daily for their lives, is a good thing. Mr. Kristol also thinks that we are not spending enough yet on defense or the Iraq war and haven’t sent enough troops into Iraq yet. Surely a paper who hires such geniuses can be trusted with the moral fiber of America!
bowarm,newsflash,you are living and thinking in a warm,fuzzy bubble in some other dimension.nice place to visit and we all wish we could live,there.
The opinion falls absolutely flat with the last paragraph’s hope-for-hope conclusion.
It was structured towards and should have been directed towards ARMED REBELLION, or if not, at the very least impeachment and conviction of this FRAUD of a president and his corrupt, illegal, administration.
too little & too late ..
too little:
where’s the logical call for impeachment for that list of crimes?
too late:
where was the NY Times when .. (you make the list)
Good comments. Given the degree of obfuscation BY media like The Times, it’s a wonder so many recognize something’s gone awfully wrong. It’s not like the FACTS are really getting out, except on the Internet and thanks to a few well placed courageous journalists like Bill Moyers. IMAGINE if THE PEOPLE really knew what was going on in their names? Imagine if the good fundamentalists who think one who respects ‘god’ is in the White House got to see footage of the destruction of a million lives? Any with any souls left intact would have to experience a spiritual disconnect bordering on schizophrenia to look themselves in the mirror and see the monster they helped to sponsor.
As for those who blame Americans, again, if the truth is not known by too many, if they trust “the voices of authority” on TV or at their jobs or at church, this large group is unaware of what’s missing. They THINK they are in the know, but that “know” as we realize is Orwellian by design. Until the deception bubble is burst, the nation still totters on.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
’nuff said…
what happened to the stupid article on “Crowning William Kristol” at the NY Times? I guess even Common Schemes has a corporate master?
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably.
Wisdom from American voters? Good luck with that…
Elected? Yeah right!
Can anyone say Bilderberg Group?
And you expected more from an admin that stole the election from someone else who had actually won it?
Re Bilderberg group, cf. www.bilderbergbook.com or www.bilderberg.org.
Pretty right-wing raving sites, but apart from the hah!-toned conclusions lacking presentation of alternative solutions to global cooperation, full of factual info.
The main problem with the annual Bilderberg-conferences is not that they happen, but their near-complete lack of transparency. This kind of forum for “the rich and powerful” should be arranged by the UN, with an openly acknowledged, egalitarian agenda. But at some point maybe the global cooperation the Bilderberg-participants establish, with the Counsil on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission, can be taken over by “We the people of the US” (all of ‘us’ - globally)”…in order to … establish Justice, … promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty” for the benefit of “freedom, equality and solidarity”.
We’re all one – the one that’s us living things – and we better work out how that ‘one’ is both us and the others, confusing as that may be on the way there.
The participants of the Bilderberg-conferences - diverse as they are and deluded by greed and control-need as they may be - are actually up against the same common challenge of understanding how we’re all us.
After negligently disregarding the warnings and other vital signs leading to 9/11, this nation allowed this unelected president to use his undeserved popularity for pursuit of his disastrous policies and sellouts. Who is to blame?
quousque I don’t it’s a spine per se, as someone else said they want to counter balance the truth with a substantial enough portion of lies.
Ullnern: When’s the last time a Bilderberg paid attention to someone who actually knew those answers? Would they even recognize such a person?
Their primary charge is how to retain/increase their wealth and power.