Washington Oddly Quiet On NSA Scandal
When Congress is not in session, Washington always seems like a completely different place. Gone are the downtown traffic jams and people say that you can get a table at the swanky restaurants without a reservation (I wouldn't know). The month of August, for example, is notorious for being dead around here.
The holiday season brings it's own distractions to the mix. Even so, one cannot help but notice something odd.
There has been no new revelations in the NSA spying scandal since the little noticed Suzanne Spaulding piece in Sunday's Post.
Reporters should be all over this matter. Some observers, including Drew L have rightfully compared the emerging eavesdropping scandal to Watergate. During Watergate, nearly every day brought important news. One actually looked forward to receiving the morning WaPo to find out yet another outrage the Nixon administration had been caught committing on American citizens.
As of Sunday, it was feeling exactly the same. An energy was building towards what was seeming like the Bush administration's denouement. The gooper apologists were appearing even more pathetic than usual (and that's saying something).
And now, silence. Nothing.
Perhaps the intrepid muckraking reporters are double checking their facts before publication.
Perhaps not. The puppetmasters of the national security state play for big stakes. The whole game rides on them pulling this one off.
They may have to throw Bush to the sharks over the NSA scandal or over an heretofore unknown ramification of Plamegate.
They would then simply install another minion to take over the role.
Like Gerald Ford in 1974.
The holiday season brings it's own distractions to the mix. Even so, one cannot help but notice something odd.
There has been no new revelations in the NSA spying scandal since the little noticed Suzanne Spaulding piece in Sunday's Post.
Reporters should be all over this matter. Some observers, including Drew L have rightfully compared the emerging eavesdropping scandal to Watergate. During Watergate, nearly every day brought important news. One actually looked forward to receiving the morning WaPo to find out yet another outrage the Nixon administration had been caught committing on American citizens.
As of Sunday, it was feeling exactly the same. An energy was building towards what was seeming like the Bush administration's denouement. The gooper apologists were appearing even more pathetic than usual (and that's saying something).
And now, silence. Nothing.
Perhaps the intrepid muckraking reporters are double checking their facts before publication.
Perhaps not. The puppetmasters of the national security state play for big stakes. The whole game rides on them pulling this one off.
They may have to throw Bush to the sharks over the NSA scandal or over an heretofore unknown ramification of Plamegate.
They would then simply install another minion to take over the role.
Like Gerald Ford in 1974.
posted by Effwit at 11:25 AM
2 Comments:
I suspect the holidays have something to do with it. In fact, any really big news won't get as much attention this week as it might next week or the next.
I was kind of surprised that the NY Times published the article last Friday about the sifting of millions/billions of calls by the NSA. Any Friday is not a good news day, typically, but the Friday right before Christmas has to be really bad. So few people actually are playing attention to the news then. They're traveling, shopping, etc. Was the Times really wanting to get that story out, or were they burying it a bit? After they waited a year to tell the story about the warrantless spying, one wonders what is going on behind the scenes.
One hopes that this doesn't just get swept under the rug, as so many other scandals have. This is big stuff, and it needs to be treated as such by the media and Congress, at a minimum.
Drew L:
You are probably right about the holidays. I was just getting jittery without my daily scandal fix.
Same with Fridays. The government traditionally dumps out bad news at 7:30pm (or later) Friday night in order to miss the news cycle.
Not that I have any confidence in the MSM, but I would be overjoyed if another couple of juicy examples of administration malfeasance would come to light right about now. Or soon. Or ever.
Not that it would be held against them, of course.
Post a Comment
<< Home