Mule wrote:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opi...ck=1&cset=true




Here's another great example. In a lead story today, the New York Times
reports that the White House sheepishly admits allowing our foreign
intelligence services to spy on numerous American citizens, within the
United States, and that practices routinely included tapping phones
without benefit of a warrant.

(A warrant is just window dressing under the Patriot Act, true. The
Patriot Act states that no judge can deny a warrant to any law
enforcement or intelligence agency claiming the surveillance has some
remote connection to the investigation of terrorism....((supporting a
Democratic candidate may fall under the current Administration's
definition of terrorism, just as speaking out against the war in Iraq
resulted in the FEDGOV spying on Quaker churches)).....but a warrant is
still required).

The supposedly left-biased New York Times had this bombshell at least a
year ago, but voluntarily suppressed the story at the behest of the
White House. The White House doesn't deny tapping the phones of US
citizens without even the phony fig-leaf warrants required by the
Patriot Act, but it requested that the NYT sit on the story "in the
interest of national security". The main concern of the White House was
not that its latest wrapping of the Constitution around a wooden spool
and using it instead of Charmin in the Executive restroom would become
public knowledge- the WH merely said
it didn't want the potential subjects of the illegal wire taps to know
the government was willing to stoop to such a level.

The NYT says it set on the story for at least a year. If they had this
story in October of 2004 and decided to keep it quiet, that action very
probably guaranteed the reelection of GWB to a greater extent than even
the lies and distortions in the Swift Boat ads.

I'd have to agree that there is media bias. A lot of it. Not just where
Limbaugh and Hannity instruct you guys to look for it, and the bias in
evidence may not always lean the way O'Reilly and Falwell insist.

As an aside, since the last President was impeached for lying under
oath one has to wonder whether lying while taking the oath "to
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States"
falls under the definition of high crimes and misdemeanors as well. I'm
no jurist, but my guess would have to be that it does. Bush is safe
while his buddies control congress, but if the D's win a majority next
fall (doubtful - the R machine is too well organized and financed and a
very skillful user of propaganda), Bush could have some trouble
avoiding criminal charges in his last two years. I'm not in favor of
that unless they can snag Cheney in the same net.........