The New York Times Strikes (Out) Again

Michael Ledeen
The big "scoop" on today's front page will be deconstructed at length. Our own professor Geraghty has already done a fine job, and Ed Morrissey has added some further thought and analysis. The bottom line is that the Times has apparently embraced the position taken by Senators Santorum and Roberts, and Representative Hoekstra: that much valuable information was contained in captured Iraqi documents, and that the Intelligence Community was far too slow in translating and evaluating the documents, and that it would be a Very Good Thing to start posting the documents online so that they could be evaluated. Santorum and Hoekstra were up against determined resistance from DNI Negroponte and his people, and many in the White House were, let us say, very slow to respond. The president always said he supported the move, but somehow it never got done. After drafting legislation that would have compel led the executive branch to start declassifying and posting the documents, Santorum, Roberts and Hoekstra finally got the process going earlier this year.