I realize that it is mandatory that the press cover the State of the Union address, so I am not criticizing the New York Times for doing so. However, it is emblematic of all that is wrong with the press in this nation that the real important event that took place yesterday, the fact that the Senate Democrats finally took a stand, however temporary, against the White House and Senate Republicans on FISA, was not covered at all. There is not a single article in the Times on the issue.
There is a brief mention of it in the article reporting on the speech, in which the issue is cast in a light favorable to Bush:
He asked lawmakers to make his tax cuts permanent, and implored them to renew legislation permitting intelligence officials to eavesdrop on the communications of terrorism suspects and to provide legal immunity to phone companies that have helped in the wiretapping efforts.
The bill doesn’t just permit intelligence officials to eavesdrop on terrorism suspects, it permits them to eavedrop on all international communications and opens the door for even wider abuses. The article implies that the phone companies were co-operating with wiretaps authorized by the bill, but in fact they were engaging in clearly illegal wiretaps, which they knew to be illegal, at a period before the present law was in effect.
But, back to the coverage. There’s an even briefer mention in an article about Congressional reaction to the speech which notes that Clinton and Obama returned to the Senate “for a couple of intelligence-related votes”.
The FISA debate got less ink in the Times than the heartwarming vignette about the Bush twins taking time off from partying to watch Daddy give a State of the Union speech for the very first time.
Bush’s speech will be old news tomorrow. The FISA votes go to the heart of our democracy. The fact that this issue, so heavily covered on the blogs (see firedoglake’s coverage, for example), is ignored by the Times speaks volumes about the real State of the Union.
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