Thursday, July 13, 2006

From a Roar to a Whimper- King and the NY Daily News

When the New York Times ran the story about the financial tracking program, King was all over them in every media outlet. His cry of "Treason!" resonated with the knuckle-dragging right.
King is quoted as saying "We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous." He wrote a letter to Attorney General Gonzalez asking for an investigation.
King said in Newsday "I intellectually believe The New York Times can be prosecuted ... I say let The New York Times spend the next two weeks saying why they shouldn't be. It's a two-for-one shot for me."
And he said on Fox News "The time has come for the American people to realize, and the New York Times to realize, we’re at war and they can’t be on their own deciding what to declassify, what to release. If Congress wants to work on this privately, that’s one thing. But for them to, on their own, for the editor of the New York Times to say that he decides it’s in the national interest -- no one elected them to anything."

Since his tirades against the Times for a story about a program that was public knowledge, the New York Daily News published a story about planned terror attacks against NYC. The News in its own story admitted that the investigation was "ongoing" and that suspects were "still at large."
We wondered if King would start screaming "TREASON!" and demand an investigation. And we weren't the only ones.
There were a few days of silence and then King emerges to tell the LA Times "It would have been better if this had not been disclosed" publicly, so as not to disrupt the investigation and intelligence-gathering effort."
What strong words of condemnation.
No letter to the Attorney General?
No calls for the arrest and prosecution of the writers and editors?
Of course not, this story helps bolster Bush's anti-terror poll numbers. Why bite the hand that feeds better poll numbers?
Here is proof that King lacks principles.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Has anybody seen Dave Mejias? I know his Legislative Aide took a leave of absence to work on this campaign, (a loose interpretation of the word) but are they going to do anything? His website sucks, two sentences on national security? Really? That is the best you can do? Nobody cares if you created a "Gang Czar" for Nassau County, that was a failure. I am an informed voter and I would like to see what he has to offer, but right now he isn't showing me anything. "Vote for me because I'm not Congressman King" is not going to win Dave Mejias an election like this.

Anonymous said...

I guess Mejias' campaign fizzled out before it ever got going. Two more years of laughs with the "Peter King Watch"

J said...

The Mejias campaign is going strong. Cover page story in the Long island Press this week and more to come.

Anonymous said...

Cover story in the Long Island Press? Next time I'm in a Blockbuster or Waldbaums I'll be sure to pick that up. Maybe Mejias can get his buddy Suozzi to share some of the pages in Newsday. How can you say this campaign is going strong when he doesn't even update his website?? Mejias will be lucky to get 40% come November.

Anonymous said...

Actually to get your story right. King has said publicly that the difference between his calling for the prosecution of the Times and not for the Daily News was because the Times was asked not to publish the story because it could lead to Al Queda learning the specific details of the program, while the Daily News, as far as King knew, had not. And King went on to say that if the Daily News was specifically told not to publish the story because it would throw off the investigation he would call for the prosecution of the Daily News. Once again the "Pete King Watch" distorting the facts.

Anonymous said...

The anaonymous King fan is getting confused in all this heat. King exempted the WSJ and LAT from his attacks because they weren't told not to print the story. This has nothing to do with the Daily News.
If anyone reads this website regularly, you can count on every fact sourced and linked to. No distortions on this site. Thank god for this site or no one would konw about the real Peter King.
FYI, The SWIFT program and details of the program were publically known.

Anonymous said...

Actually what I stated was correct, King has said, publicly, that he exempted the Daily News because, as far as he knew, the Daily News was not told not to run the story. Just because you didn't see King say that doesn't make my statement wrong. And this website is know for spinning the facts against King. I mean it blames King for the 40% cuts, but where is the praise for the 25% increase in DHS funds for transportation and now the new DHS program to check cargo only being used in two cities, one being New York. You can't blame King for the cuts and not give him credit for the increase. Also if the SWIFT program details were known why did the NY Times need to run a story to inform the public of the program?

Anonymous said...

The NY Times was not about the exiistance of the program. It was already well known. The stroy was about the fears of europeans that the program could be prone to abuse.

The administration is just trying to stir up their base with this crap.