Surprise! The New York Times pisses of David Reinhard!

Way to piss off David, New York Times.

In his latest column, Dave makes it quite clear that he's upset with the New York Times reporting that the Bush administration has instigated an international program to monitor the movement of millions of dollars through financial transactions, ostensibly to track terrorism. Indeed, Dave gets pretty close to calling the New York Times treasonous for interferring with issues of "national security."

Ah, national security, the big ol' bugaboo. If those two words weren't able to exist, what cloudy rhetoric and half-baked ideology would conservatives have to hide behind?

Reinhard's anger wouldn't come across as self-righteous and self-serving if it weren't for the following: the U.S. Treasury has announced on numerous occasions that it is tracking the movements of large sums of money from groups with terrorist connections in an effort to "follow the money." Oh, did I forget to throw in the word 'publicly?' Yes, that's right. The U.S. Treasury has publicly announced that they are following huge financial sums from groups with terrorist connections. This has led to the closing and seizure of Al-Barakaat companies, a company widley suspected of funding al Qaida actions, in four cities: Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle and Columbus, Ohio. Indeed, the U.S. Treasury department has listed nearly one hundred people or groups suspected of associating with or funding terrorist-related groups.

Again, this is all public knowledge as the Bush administration prides itself in making itself look strong on terrorism by continually telling the terrorists exactly what they're going to do. Remember revealing that they had caught and al Qaida operative, and was using him in undercover work in the summer of 2004? Wouldn't it seem like announcing the use of an undercover al Qaida agent would be counter-productive in actually fighting the war on terror? Indeed, the British, who the operative was working with, begged the Bush administration not to reveal the use of the operative. What the British weren't aware, though, was that there was a bigger war that was being fought at that time: the war against John Kerry. And revealing the undercover agent, even if it made him useless, prevented Kerry on getting any momentum on the issue of fighting terrorism.

Yeah, like we can really take this gang of idiots "seriously" on the subject of fighting terrorism.

So, if the Bush administration has all ready announced that it's following the money of known or suspected terrorist groups or indivudlas, what's the big deal? Well, it appears that- surprise! surpise!- the program being used to track these transactions is also tracking millions of transactions by groups and individuals that have absolutely no connection with terrorist groups. They have poured through the finanical records of millions of individuals, with little or no oversight. Who are these people? Which records are being looked at? Nobody knows. And this gets Dave steamed. Not because of this latest onslaught on civil liberties by the Bush administration, that doesn't get Dave steamed, but instead the fact that it was simply reported by the New York Times. That just really gets Dave's goat.

However, this story wasn't broken by the New York Times alone. It was also published in connection with the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. Thank God the New York Times was one of the three papers that published it, however. As a favorite whipping-boy for conservatives, if the New York Times hadn't published this story, Dave and other conservatives wouldn't have much ammunition in gnashing their teeth and wailing against the Los Angeles Times. Could you imagine Bush and Cheney galvanizing their base by speaking against the Los Angeles Times in public speeches over the past week? Me neither. And what if neither of the Times papers had broken the story, but was scooped instead by the administration's buddies over at the Wall Street Journal. Somehow I doubt that if the Journal had broken this story alone we'd hear as much criticism and hand-wringing. Instead, I bet you'd hear hardly a peep of criticism and the administration would, instead, spin the breaking of the news in a such a manner that they had approached the press in an effort to bring more transparency to their international banking spying program.

Instead, luckily for the Bush administration, the New York Times was involved, thus painting a bright red target on them. And Dave's only too willing to help shoot at that target, saying that he's "angry" that the New York Times decided that the public should know that the government is going through their financial records.

It should be noted that right above Dave's column is an unsigned editorial, about how the Bush administration is "shootng the messnger" in regards to the banking story. In this editorial, it is written: "[Bush, Cheney, and Snow] turned yet another revelation of warrantless spying on Americans into a story about traitorous news media making it harder to fight the war." How does the media announcing that the Bush administration is going through our financial records making it harder to fight any war? These revelations have absolutely no connection with the troops on the ground in Iraq, now matter how much the conservatives in an uproar would like you to believe it is. And, also, why wasn't "See David Reinhard's column below for further examples" inserted after that sentence? Seriously, is the editorial page editor even aware of the layout?

You're angry, Dave? Quick, tell me that the government isn't going through my financial records. Or going through the records of those who have made campaign contributions to Democratic candidates since 2001, or left-leaning groups in that timespan. What's that? You can't? Then you should rethink the pedestal that you periously perch upon as you share your self-righteous anger in the pages of The Oregonian.

Look, it's quite simple. No adminsitration that ignored a Presidential Daily Briefing which stated that bin Laden is "determined" to strike the U.S. can be taken seriously to fight a war on terror. Their actions, or, rather, lack of, led to the killings of Americans en masse that Dave purportedly wants to avoid by allowing these same screw-ups to search our bank records. It appears that Bush's defense in regards to his warrantless domestic wire-tapping or financial spying is that we should "trust him." That's the same rationale he proposed in the build up to the war and the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I seem to recall Rumsfeld telling us that he knew exactly where the weapons were. Trust these guys? Not as far as I can throw 'em.

If the Bush administration is complaining about how the press, the unofficial fourth branch of government, is doing their job, then the press must be doing a damn good one. Hats off to the New York Times for breaking this story, as hopefully it will lead to increased oversight in just what, and how, the Bush administration can use the tools at their disposal.