More NYT’s (In)Consistency

The NYT has recently demonstrated a great deal of consistency. In being inconsistent, that is. In late July, I reported on the Times’s rather elastic notion of organizational accountability (other organizations – accountability good; at the NYT, accountability bad). And now, during the past couple of weeks – in response to the heightened terror warnings – the good people at the Times editorial desk have provided us with yet another example of their peculiarly Timesian method of evaluating public policy.

Back in April, a media-induced public groundswell of opinion demanded that National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice testify in front of the 9/11 Commission and respond to questioning from the Commissioners. After initially opposing such an arrangement, the Bush administration gave its consent, and Rice appeared before the Commission on April 8, 2004. Rice, of course, was peppered with questions – most insistently by Democratic Commissioners Bob Kerrey and Richard Ben-Veniste.

The most dramatic exchange occurred when Ben-Veniste zeroed in on the matter of an August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB), which warned of Bin Laden’s intent to strike in the United States:

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6 PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?
RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."


After the audience – as expected – gasped and Ben-Veniste failed in his attempt to silence Rice before she could answer his first question, Rice was finally permitted to explain why the PDB was not the immediate call-to-arms that its title might suggest.


RICE: You said, did it not warn of attacks.[?] It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting [from 1998]. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.


The key word here, please take note, was “historical.” The reason that the PDB did not inspire robust new counter-terrorism measures, said Dr. Rice, was because there was nothing in the briefing that suggested a robust new terror threat existed.

The Times editors, of course, were not mollified by this explanation. First, the very next day (April 9), they cast doubt on Rice’s contention that the memo indeed contained “historical” information:

“The administration argument that it had only gotten intelligence about potential terrorist attacks abroad in the summer of 2001 was rather drastically undermined when Ms. Rice revealed, under questioning, that the briefing given Mr. Bush by the C.I.A. on Aug. 6, 2001, was titled ''Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'' Ms. Rice continues to insist that the information was ''historical'' rather than a warning of something likely to occur.”

This initial attack crumbled on April 10, when the PDB was declassified and Rice’s contention was confirmed. Still, the Times would not let the memo go. On April 12, the editors returned to “the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo he [President Bush] received on domestic terrorism.”

This time, the editors admitted that, “Perhaps no other administration would have responded differently to the skimpy document Mr. Bush received in August 2001.” Yet, earlier in the editorial, they complain that Mr. Bush could have done more to prevent the attacks after receiving the “skimpy” document:


“He could, for instance, have left his vacation in Texas after receiving that briefing memo entitled ''Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.'' and rushed back to the White House, assembled all his top advisers and demanded to know what, in particular, was being done to screen airline passengers to make sure people who fit the airlines' threat profiles were being prevented from boarding American planes.”


Ok, let’s attempt to be fair. We may not entirely approve of the Times’s April coverage of the PDB story, but it is wasn’t wholly unreasonable. The editors treated Dr. Rice’s claims with skepticism until the PDB was released, after which they admitted that it was a “skimpy” document. True, their simultaneous criticism of President Bush’s lack of a forceful response to the PDB smacks of 20/20 hindsight – after all, they admit that it was a “skimpy” document that likely would have been treated the same way by any administration – but, to be perfectly honest, every sane American wishes that the President (and the federal government, and all previous administrations) had done more to ensure airline safety and combat terrorism.

Like I said, the April coverage is – at least – defensible. Yes, the Times admits, the document really was historical; it did not contain new actionable intelligence. But wouldn’t it have been better if the President had done more, anyway? Well, wouldn’t it have been?

Fast forward four months. August 1, 2004. The Bush administration releases an urgent alert of possible terror attacks against New York financial buildings and various other targets. The Times reports on August 2: In response to alarming intelligence, “New York City, Washington, the State of New Jersey and major financial institutions in Manhattan and northern New Jersey stepped up security yesterday to the highest levels since the terrorist attacks of three years ago…”

The response was vigorous and broad-based, as demonstrated by these three (among numerous other relevant) excerpts from a NYT news piece:

“‘We are deploying our full array of counterterrorism resources,’ Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday [Aug. 1] at a briefing called to announce the assignment of special police units and other measures to guard the stock exchange, Citigroup buildings in Midtown Manhattan and Queens and other potential targets. 'We will spare no expense and we will take no chances.’''

“Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who joined Mr. Bloomberg at City Hall, said that trucks would be banned from the Williamsburg Bridge, which links Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan, starting today, to help police concentrate vehicle searches on the nearby Manhattan Bridge. Manhattan-bound trucks will also be diverted from the Holland Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge, where truck searches are to be conducted, officials said.”

“The New York Stock Exchange in Lower Manhattan was barricaded and heavily guarded yesterday, as usual. And extra contingents of special antiterrorism officers with automatic weapons were visible outside the Citigroup building at 54th Street and Lexington Avenue, at a Citigroup tower in Long Island City, Queens, and at the 24-story Prudential headquarters in Newark, where barricades were set up to block traffic from surrounding streets.”


Now this, you must be thinking, this level of urgency, this level of immediacy, this level of seriousness – this is the way to respond to the threat of terrorism! This is the United States government at its finest – its resolute, decisive leaders, mobilizing every resource at their disposal to protect the lives of its citizens. If you are like me, you also find yourself thinking – If Only! If only on August 6, 2001, our leaders had known what we know now, that a dedicated group of Islamofascists is plotting, every day, to kill us and our way of life. If only our leaders had showcased then the admirable vigilance – even hyper-vigilance – which they have displayed during the past two weeks.

Such was not the view of the editors on 43rd Street. There, the government’s present mobilization of resources against a terrorist threat was perceived in a different light, especially when it was revealed that the intelligence upon which the alerts were based were historical (there’s that word again) in nature:

“The Times reports today [August 3] that much of the information that led to the heightened alert is actually three or four years old and that authorities had found no concrete evidence that a terror plot was actually under way. This news does nothing to bolster the confidence Americans need that the administration is not using intelligence for political gain.”

Did you catch that? Read the passage one more time:

“The Times reports today that much of the information that led to the heightened alert is actually three or four years old and that authorities had found no concrete evidence that a terror plot was actually under way. This news does nothing to bolster the confidence Americans need that the administration is not using intelligence for political gain.”

Excuse me, you must now be asking yourself, Are these people serious?! The same editors who in April lamented the fact that Bush did not act more forcefully in response to “historical” intelligence concerning a terrorist threat in 2001 are now criticizing the federal government – and questioning its motives – for responding forcefully to “historical” intelligence concerning a terrorist threat?

You may recall that I used an unfamiliar adjective at the beginning of this rather long piece – “Timesian.” You might have asked yourself what I could have meant by this adjective. I hope that the answer is becoming apparent. “Timesian” describes the mindset according to which the vigilance of American leaders is considered a laudatory objective only when it is absent and the horrible occurs; actual vigilance, the kind that prevents the horrible from occurring, is frowned upon. This is so because, in the Timesian view, governmental action and public policy are evaluated not according to their inherent value – right and wrong being merely a theoretical (though sometimes useful) framework of the narrow-minded – but rather according to the god of all values: political expedience. The end always justifies the means, so long – of course – as it is a Timesian end for which we justify. You see, America’s response to the threat of terrorism is not really about defending innocent people from those who would murder them; it is, like all other issues of national import, actually only a tool for achieving a desired political end.

In criticizing the Bush administration in August for implementing the counter-terrorism policy it had recommended in April, the New York Times has, once again, clearly identified the political end it is intent upon achieving.