"Terror Alerts" Have Happened When Bush "Would Have Benefited" - August 6, 2004
August 6,
2004
"Is the New York Times a Liberal Newspaper? Of course it is."
- NYT Public Editor Daniel Okrent, July 25, 2004.
"Terror Alerts" Have Happened
When Bush "Would Have Benefited"
"Some of the past terror alerts have seemed aimless
and happened when the Bush administration would have benefited from a change in
the political conversation."
- August 5 editorial on the latest terror warnings.
Bush Using
Intelligence for Political Gain?
"it's unfortunate that it is
necessary to fight suspicions of political timing, suspicions the administration
has sown by misleading the public on security. The Times reports today that much
of the information that led to the heightened alert is actually three or four
years old and that authorities had found no concrete evidence that a terror plot
was actually under way. This news does nothing to bolster the confidence
Americans need that the administration is not using intelligence for political
gain."
- August 3 editorial on the latest terror warnings.
Bush Manipulating Terror Threat?
"Some version of that view was echoed at almost
every table here as many patrons questioned whether the Bush administration was
trying to manipulate the terrorist threat for political advantage.With polls
showing public doubts on topics like President Bush's veracity on the war in
Iraq and whether the country is safer from terrorism as a result of that
invasion, people of diverse ages, income and political persuasion interviewed in
eight states expressed a wary mix of skepticism and resignation about the orange
alert that has dominated headlines, newscasts and talk radio for three days."
- Stephen Kinzer and Todd Purdum in Kenosha, Wis., August 5.
One Out of Three: Pretty Bad
"It has been a rough year for the Bush
administration by some measures, with criticism from the Sept. 11 commission,
prison scandals in Iraq and a flat economy at home."
- Elisabeth Rosenthal in West Virginia, August 4. The economy has been in
recovery since mid-2003, and the 9/11 report has been embraced by Bush.
Nagourney Flubs
Key Intelligence Fact
"That division was particularly
apparent with the disclosure that the Bush administration had elevated the alert
based on intelligence collected three or four years ago."
- Adam Nagourney, August 4. Although the terror intelligence regarding
possible attacks on NYC-area financial institutions is three or four years old,
it was collected only weeks ago.
"Wag the Dog," Bush-Style
"But Mr. Bush must also take pains not to be seen
as letting the political tail wag the terrorism dog. Word that much of the newly
discovered intelligence that prompted the latest alert was years old led even
some law enforcement officials to wonder why Mr. Ridge had raised the threat
level just now."
- Todd Purdum, August 4.
Threat Data Comes at "Awkward
Time" for Defensive Bush
"On Sunday at
2 p.m. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced the decision to raise the
threat level. Senior administration officials said the action was not driven by
election-year considerations, but by intelligence reports that described an
orchestrated surveillance operation at several large financial institutions. It
is now apparent that the information had significant gaps and omissions. It was
not clear, for example, who was behind the scouting missions, whether these
unidentified suspects were still in the United States or even whether their
reconnaissance operations, many of which were conducted three or four years ago,
represented an aborted plan or were an early warning sign of an active plot. The
new threat information seemed to come at an awkward time for Mr. Bush, who has
anchored his re-election campaign on his handling of terrorism, but is still on
the defensive because of criticism by the independent commission that
investigated the Sept. 11 attacks."
- David Johnston and Eric Lichtblau, August 4.
Tom Daschle: Gentle, Soft-Spoken,
and Definitely No Lightweight
"'Lightweight' is not an expression anyone would use to describe Tom Daschle. At
56, Daschle has been the Senate Democratic leader for 10 years, two years longer
than Lyndon Johnson, whose portrait hangs in Daschle's elegant Capitol suite, at
the minority leader's request. Unlike the bullying Johnson, Daschle is gentle
and soft-spoken.[Senate Majority Leader Bill] Frist was besieged with questions
about why he had violated Senate protocol by campaigning against Daschle on his
home turf. The Democratic leader wound up looking like a victim; the
Republicans, like bullies."
- Sheryl Gay Stolberg in an August 1 Times Sunday Magazine profile of Senate
Minority Leader Tom Daschle.
"Successful" Democratic
Convention? Says Who?
"News of the terror threat on Sunday also
stirred renewed suggestions from some Democrats that the White House was
manipulating terror alerts for Mr. Bush's political gain. They said the alert
had been issued just as Mr. Kerry emerged from a convention that was described
by Republicans and Democrats as a success."
- Adam Nagourney and David Halbfinger, August 2.
Economic "Setback" for Bush =
Good Front-Page News for Kerry
"The
slowdown was a setback to efforts by President Bush to point to solid growth as
a validation of his administration's economic policies, and played into the
hands of his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, who has criticized the
White House's economic approach."
- Economics reporter Eduardo Porter in a front-page story, July 31.
Ugh
A few hours later, Qingming, 18 years old, stepped
in front of an approaching locomotive. The train, like China's roaring economy,
was an express."
- Joseph Kahn and Jim Yardley in an August 1 story on a young Chinese man's
suicide and "the money-centered, cutthroat society that has replaced socialist
China."
