Media less assertive in covering NSA scandal than Whitewater
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The January 5, 1994, Post editorial read, in part:
The administration has taken the position that there’s no need to name an independent counsel in the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan case. It argues that the investigation is safely in the hands of career Justice Department attorneys, that the president and Mrs. Clinton are cooperating fully even though not directly involved and that the attorney general has no current power to appoint a fully independent counsel anyway.
We think that’s wrong – that, murky though most aspects of this case still are, it represents precisely the kind of case in which an independent counsel ought to be appointed. We say that even though – and this should be stressed – there has been no credible charge in this case that either the president or Mrs. Clinton did anything wrong. Nevertheless, it is in the public interest – and in the president’s as well – to put the inquiry in independent hands.
[…]
There is no way even under the best of circumstances, which don’t exist here, that a Justice Department in any administration can conduct a credible investigation involving a president to whom it is ultimately responsible. That’s what’s at issue in this matter – and why an independent figure should be named.
Now, how has the Post’s editorial board addressed the current Bush administration domestic spying operation?
12/18/05: “[T]he administration appears to have taken the position that the president is entitled to ignore a clearly worded criminal law when it proves inconvenient in the war on terrorism. … FISA has been the law of the land for 2 1/2 decades. To disrupt it so fundamentally, in total secret and without seeking legislative authorization, shows a profound disregard for Congress and the laws it passes.”
12/20/05: “The snooping appears to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), but the attorney general says it doesn’t. … The administration must be forced to explain itself comprehensively, so Congress can decide how to respond.”
1/23/06: “The most detailed legal justification to date for the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic surveillance has emerged from the Bush administration, but the 42-page version isn’t any more convincing than its shorter predecessors. In some ways – particularly in its broad conception of presidential power in wartime – it is more disturbing.”
So, in 1994, the Post argued that there was no “credible charge … that either the president or Mrs. Clinton did anything wrong” – but called for an independent investigation anyway.
Now, the Post argues that the Bush administration is “ignor[ing] a clearly worded criminal law,” “show[ing] a profound disregard for Congress and the laws it passes,” “appears to violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” and “must be forced to explain itself comprehensively.” The Post finds the administration’s “legal justification” for the spying program unconvincing and “disturbing.” And yet the Post has not called for an independent investigation.
Why not?
It cannot be because the Post considers the allegations against Bush less credible than those against Clinton; the paper itself has argued exactly the opposite. It cannot be because there is no public desire for an independent investigation – there is. A January 20-22 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans think a special counsel should be appointed to investigate the spying program.