The Stool Pigeons
Oh man, did Roger Simon just spank hell out of the Times Two. This is a true thing of beauty.
What fascinates me in all this is what a tin ear some of the major players in our media have to one of the most basic of all themes in American life – You don't truck with stoolies! You would think anyone who had a seen even a couple of movies from the glory days of Hollywood – the thirties and forties when the movie industry practically invented our national character – would know better. There's nothing more loathsome than a stoolie.
Now these stoolies are dressed in Brooks Brothers and even Armani suits and are employed by the CIA, the State Department, banks and the like, yet they are still stoolies. Worse – they are anonymous stoolies. We have almost no way of knowing the veracity of what they are saying and even less the motives for why they are saying it. But the Times and the Times insist that they have checked these people out, that they are not stoolies, but patriotic "whistle blowers."
Say what?
They are stoolies.
This is pure poetry, and needs to be read in it's entirety.
The thing is, Roger Simon is dead, spot on right here. This is exactly what the Times Two have done to themselves. They have destroyed their credibility by playing with informers. Politically motivated leakers. They can't say any crime was committed. They have proof – admitted proof – that the program was effective. But they willfully, wantonly and, I think, foolishly, exposed and destroyed the program. Saying it was well known and yet touting it as a closely held secret is nonsense and they can't honestly think anyone believes that spin.
I have had a rash of agenda-driven commenters trying to spin this using the same, tired talking points. The problem is, that with me at least, my upset with the Times Two has no political basis whatever. I am not motivated by agenda, and I think many of the bloggers who are upset by this are not, either. What the Times Two did, in absolute terms, not political terms, is a wrong. A bad thing for this country and for the people of this country. There simply was no good reason to shout this story out. None.
And the Times Two laid down with the leaking, stoolie dogs. Good luck with the fleas, boys.
Keller gone by the end of summer, Pinch Sulzberger gone at the next shareholders meeting. Sleep tight, boys. Although the fleas you got from the company you keep might be bothering you by now.
Blogosphere, Media, Politics, War | Gaius July 2, 2006
By Shawn, July 3, 2006 @ 1:53 am
You are right–these are politically-motivated leakers. That the Times (and others) willingly participate with them would indicate a bias exists, which the Times and others all swear does not exist.
By TC@LeatherPenguin, July 3, 2006 @ 3:11 am
I don’t think it’s gonna take a shareholder meeting, as per Pinch. His own family has gotta realize what a disaster that clown has become for their bottom line. Their fealty to the family can only go so far before they realize he’s driving their money machine down the highway that leads to Skid Row.