"The publication was not timed to the Iraqi election, the Patriot Act debate, Jim's forthcoming book or any other event," Keller said in a statement. "We published the story when we did because after much hard work it was fully reported, checked and ready, and because, after listening respectfully to the administration's objections, we were convinced there was no good reason not to publish it."
The newspaper had reported Friday that it held publication of the story for "a year" because the White House had argued that it "could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny."
That statement was widely taken to mean...well...exactly what it fuckin says. Keller was claiming, which he now says was simply a case of "inelegant words", that he crushed the story from December 2004 until it was published a year later in December 2005.
LA Times & NY Observer both ran anon. sourced stories claiming the Times had the story before the election.
Guess what. They were fucking right.
Shortly after publication of the story, the
New York Observer and the
Los Angeles Times both ran stories based on anonymous sources claiming that the debate over publishing it had raged on for months....even before and during the run-up to the 2004 election.
Well they were fuckin right. It has now been confirmed by the New York Times Executive Editor, Bill Keller himself, that they had the story for weeks before the 2004 election and even had a draft for possible publication a week before election day. Not only that, he confirms that he was the one making the final decision to repeatedly kill the story.
Today's New York Times, Byron Calame:
The article, written by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, has been honored with a Pulitzer and other journalistic prizes. But contradictory post-publication comments by Times editors and others about just how long the article was held have left me increasingly concerned about one key question: Did The Times mislead readers by stating that any delay in publication came after the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election?
But I have now learned from Bill Keller, the executive editor, that The Times delayed publication of drafts of the eavesdropping article before the 2004 election. This revelation confirms what anonymous sources had told other publications such as The Los Angeles Times and The New York Observer in December.
A number of readers critical of the Bush administration have remained particularly suspicious of the article's assertion that the publication delay dated back only "a year" to Dec. 16, 2004. They contend that pre-election disclosure of the National Security Agency's warrantless eavesdropping could have changed the outcome of the election.
Gee, ya fuckin think?
Internal discussions about drafts of the article had been "dragging on for weeks" before the Nov. 2 election, Mr. Keller acknowledged. That process had included talks with the Bush administration. He said a fresh draft was the subject of internal deliberations "less than a week" before the election.
"The climactic discussion about whether to publish was right on the eve of the election," Mr. Keller said.
Holding a fresh draft of the story just days before the election also was an issue of fairness, Mr. Keller said. I agree that candidates affected by a negative article deserve to have time -- several days to a week -- to get their response disseminated before voters head to the polls.
Give me a fucking break. So basically Keller decided to give the finger to the voting population of this nation and decided that this was information that they did not deserve to have when entering the voting booths.
***UPDATE: 1:10am EST ***
Kossack Magnifico has a very good rebuttal in comments to that "it wouldn't be fair" bullshit from Keller:
Why didn't they withhold the overwhelmed website story during the Connecticut primary? The only answer I have is that today's media is another big corporate polluter.
Good fuckin point. That fairness bs from Keller stinks to high heavens.
Why did Keller say that it had been a year before and not 14 months before, which would make it pre-election...one of the chief questions that was raised? Oh.... You'll love this shit:
"It was probably inelegant wording," Mr. Keller said, who added later, "I don't know what was in my head at the time."
Right.
Did something else have a little something more to do with all of this than a little inelegance being strewn about?
Look at one little sentence in a paragraph quoted above....
Internal discussions about drafts of the article had been "dragging on for weeks" before the Nov. 2 election, Mr. Keller acknowledged. That process had included talks with the Bush administration. He said a fresh draft was the subject of internal deliberations "less than a week" before the election.
So now that we know for an absolute fact that the debate over publishing this article was not in December of 2004 but in October of 2004, what was really going on in those talks with the Bush Administration and was Keller, in giving them complete political protection on this major issue of illegal acts being performed, merely the fool for falling for their "national security" line or was he really leaning more on his "let's play fair" bullshit that Calame quotes him on in the article?
Would it have made a difference in the outcome of the 2004 Presidential election? Who knows. But now we know for a fact that the New York Times decided that the American public did not deserve to have the facts of criminal acts being performed by this White House until after they went in the voting booth.
Byron Calame brings it home to conclude his Public Editor column today:
It was more than inelegant, however, to report flatly that the delay had lasted "a year." Characterizing it as "more than a year," as Mr. Keller and others later did, would have been technically accurate. But that phrase would have represented a fuzziness that Times readers shouldn't have to put up with when a hotly contested presidential election is involved.
Given the importance of this otherwise outstanding article on warrantless eavesdropping -- and now the confirmation of pre-election decisions to delay publication -- The Times owes it to readers to set the official record straight.
Absolutely. At least the Times has a decent Public Editor now. Bout all the positive that can be taken from this article.
Unbelievable. And this is the bastion of liberal media bias that we hear about incessantly from the right wing masters of bullshit eh? Right. Go to hell, Keller. You're a disgrace.
[UPDATE: 1:47am]
Let's get this story to the #1 spot on the NY Times "Most Emailed" list so it gets more eyes and more coverage.
When you go to the article, simply click the "email" link to the top right of the text and email it to yourself or, preferably, someone else....or 50 others :p
The more people that read this, the more it will spread, and the more Bill Keller's ass will be on the hotseat as somebody who is enabling, and/or colluding with, this criminal president and possibly even had an effect on the outcome of the 2004 election by his very own choice to kill a major story of crimes against the U.S. constitution by this president.
Everyone here email this to at least one person so we can get it out there. Bill Keller does not deserve to be running the New York Times any longer. As Kossack Gooserock noted below in comments, Keller took it upon himself to influence the election by withholding this story. His job as Executive Editor of the New York Times is not to influence elections, it is to provide quality information to allow us to be informed citizens, especially and most importantly when we go to elect those who run our nation. Hiding the crimes of this White House in the weeks before Election Day was his decision and his alone in the end. He should resign.
Click here to email the story
[UPDATE 2:41am]
Email and Call the New York Times and demand that Bill Keller resign or be replaced. He has admitted to withholding evidence of impeachable crimes by the Bush Administration because he didn't think it was "fair" to Bush to publish this information right before the election.
Thank you to Skywriter for the contact information in comments.
Write and Call away. Bill Keller has no business being the Executive Editor of the most highly regarded newspaper in the nation.
Letters to the editor:
letters@nytimes.com.
If anyone wants to pen an Op-Ed in the hopes that it actually might get printed (who knows).....
For information on Op-Ed submissions, call (212) 556-1831 or send article to oped@nytimes.com. To write to the editorial page editor, send to editorial@nytimes.com.
Bill Keller's email addy:
executive-editor@nytimes.com
Byron Calame, Public Editor (the one who brought us this confirmation today)
To reach Byron Calame, who represents the readers, e-mail public@nytimes.com or call (212) 556-7652.
If you email or call Byron Calame, please thank him for the work he is doing on our behalf. He's doing a good job and he deserves our thanks for getting this story out to us.
The message is simple and clear. Bill Keller has got to go. Whether he resigns or is fired is of no consequence. He simply has no business running a news organization after his disgusting admission of withholding a huge story on crimes committed by the incumbent candidate for president mere weeks before the election.