The Passion of the New York Times

The New York Times story continues apace, as referenced above. Fortunately the Times has some defenders as well, such as David Remnick at the New Yorker.

In the wake of the Administration’s record of dishonesty and incompetence in Iraq and the consequent decline in the President’s domestic polling numbers, it is not hard to discern why the White House might find a convenient enemy in the editors of the Times: this is an election year. The assault on the Times is a no-lose situation for the White House. The banking story itself showed the Administration to be doing what it had declared it was doing from the start: concertedly monitoring the financial transactions of potential terrorists. At the same time, by smearing the Times for the delectation of the Republican “base,” the Administration could direct attention away from its failures, including, last week, the Supreme Court’s decision to block its plans to try Guantánamo detainees before military commissions.

Yeah, this pretty much is all politics, but politics with potential long term consequences.