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October 22, 2006“I hated Bush so much I couldn’t do my job…”That would be NY Times Public Editor (used to be called “ombudsman”) Byron Calame as he makes excuses for a much-too-late admission of malicious journalism. He writes: My July 2 column strongly supported The Times’s decision to publish its June 23 article on a once-secret banking-data surveillance program. After pondering for several months, I have decided I was off base. There were reasons to publish the controversial article, but they were slightly outweighed by two factors to which I gave too little emphasis. While it’s a close call now, as it was then, I don’t think the article should have been published. Those two factors are really what bring me to this corrective commentary: the apparent legality of the program in the United States, and the absence of any evidence that anyone’s private data had actually been misused. I had mentioned both as being part of “the most substantial argument against running the story,” but that reference was relegated to the bottom of my column. Heh. As was this admission, today. Indicates both cowardice and bad habits. WHY did Calame falter so badly on this story? It’s George W. Bush’s fault!: …What kept me from seeing these matters more clearly earlier in what admittedly was a close call? I fear I allowed the vicious criticism of The Times by the Bush administration to trigger my instinctive affinity for the underdog and enduring faith in a free press — two traits that I warned readers about in my first column. Vicious criticism? Oh, you mean like when President Bush said “these sorts of leaks destroy programs that are saving lives?” Oh, my…that’s vicious. It’s not like Bush called the Times a name…it’s not like Bush took a tone with the Times that came anywhere near the tone the Times editors routinely take over him or his administration. “Waaaaahhhh…I didn’t like how Bush was, so I didn’t do my job! Wahhhh.” Clearly if you can’t do your job because you can’t put your wounded pride aside, then you shouldn’t be in that job. An ombudsman is supposed to look at a story and judge the rightness of it, without passion or prejudice. Calame has demonstrated he cannot do this, at least not in a timely manner…or above the fold. I give him credit for admitting it, but now that he has seen that he cannot detach his feelings from his work, he should resign. Tom Maguire takes a look back at the whole SWIFT bank imbroglio. Patterico also thinks he should resign. Ed Morrissey doesn’t think Calame should lose his job, just do it better: Instead of acting as Chief Apologist, Calame should take his job a little more seriously in the future. The Times blew an important national-security program just to pump up its anti-Bush credentials, regardless of the fact that the program operated within the law and never abused the information it gathered. Calame dislikes the administration as much as the rest of the people at the New York Times, and in the guise of detached analysis endorsed the publication of a non-story in his zeal to undermine the White House using any means at their disposal. Everyone else knew that this story had no merit; it took the Times and its public editor four months to figure it out. Michelle Malkin has lots of background on the whole story. She wonders why this “oops” isn’t on the first page. I kind of wonder why it’s not a big headline on Drudge, myself. Instapundit has more. http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/10/22/i-hated-bush-so-much-i-couldnt-do-my-job/trackback/ 13 Responses to ““I hated Bush so much I couldn’t do my job…”” |
October 22nd, 2006 at 2:32 pm
It is so ugly, juvenile, pathetic…
How many lives has this liberal Democrat now endangered?
Without any basis, just pure hatred and bigotry driving the irresponsible folly.
It is an outrage…
October 22nd, 2006 at 5:42 pm
NYT Public Editor Admits Publication Wrong
It takes three months to realize that these stories undermine US national security? That there was no illegal activity on the part of the US government? Or that the NYT should have held the stories because of the beneficial data that these programs c…
October 22nd, 2006 at 5:46 pm
[...] More… Michelle Malkin Ace Instapundit The Anchoress [...]
October 22nd, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Resign, hell! Fetch a rope.
NYT’s Calame: Oops. Our Bad.Ed Morrissey The New York Times’ public editor, Byron Calame, initially supported the publication of the confidential national-security program that tracked terrorist financing through the Swift banking program. Now, at th…
October 22nd, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Mad at George Bush? Get even, give away our intelligence secrets
THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT! Or so says Ombudsman Bryan Calame at the New York Times. Michelle Malkin calls it Un. Freaking. Believable! It really is, isn’t it? The arrogance is mindboggling. What the heck are you talking about Sara? Remember the Swift Pr…
October 22nd, 2006 at 8:11 pm
I Was Wrong, but Only Slightly Wrong
Byron Calame tries to sneak in an apology for the treasonous behavior of himself and his co-conspiritors on the NY Times in Can ‘Magazines’ of The Times Subsidize News Coverage? - New York Times. Now, if you look at that title, and at the …
October 22nd, 2006 at 8:39 pm
[...] Linked with Michelle Malkin, Patterico’s Pontifications,The Anchoress, JunkYardBlog, Macsmind, Riehl World View, [...]
October 22nd, 2006 at 9:04 pm
[...] The Anchoress [...]
October 22nd, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Peas In A Pod
Why, the BBC and the New York Times, of course. (props to Ace of Spades) First, the BBC. At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is
October 23rd, 2006 at 5:42 am
NY Times Published National Security Secrets To Get Back At the Bush Administration
We should be thankful that the New York Times decided to undermine the security of the United States in recognition of the hypersensitive fears of foreign opponents of the Bush administration.
…
November 2nd, 2006 at 10:15 am
[...] Gosh, I wonder what the Time’s intrepid “Public Editor” Byron Calame might have to say about this…in about oh…five months. On page…43B, below the fold. [...]
November 28th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
[...] Well, why not? The press has done everything else it possibly could to undermine our troops and the president, since 2003. It’s all about honor, you know. Honorable withdrawal and stuff. [Clarification - I was writing angry when I posted this and that’s never a good idea. Brian Montopoli at CBS Public Eye has rightly found my overgeneralized language objectionable, and I want to take this opportunity to say that no, I do not believe that ALL journalists are actively working to undermine the troops or the president. But SOME are…I think most in the press just don’t like the Iraq story or Bush and wish both would go away, but they are not working from a place of active malice…but some are. And they’re really not that hard to find, if you look. The NY Times does, I think, actively work at undermining. Leaking that SWIFT banking information hurt us, and then we got the “public editor’s” late and lame declaration: “I discovered there was no crime…we shouldn’t have published that information…but I just hated Bush so much I couldnt’ do my job!”< ?a> Yes, I think there are some in the press who perhaps do not realize how far out they have gone. - Admin] [...]
January 3rd, 2007 at 12:18 pm
[...] After the Jayson Blair fiasco, the Times hired Dan Okrent as its “Public Editor,” essentially an ombudsman role. In that role, Okrent is chiefly remembered for answering the question, “Is the New York Times a liberal newspaper?” with, “Of course it is.” Even though he went on to say that it didn’t matter, Okrent was respected, but not much loved at the paper. His replacement at Public Editor, one Byron Calame? Not even so much. A four decade veteran of the Wall Steet Journal before signing on with the Times, he earned the enmity of editor-in-chief Bill Keller by initially supporting, and then reconsidering his support, for the story outing the overseas SWIFT banking surveillance program: It turns out that Bush made him do it - support the story that is. He rowed back away from it all by his lonesome. [...]