Attack on NYT is a Rovian gambit to cower the press in an election year

If Americans do not see through this BS, in this election year, and continue to elect Republicans to Congress, then they will get what they deserve.

This administration is the worst the U.Ss. has ever had to endure nd the Republican-led, cover-up congress is as responsiible as anyone else.

The only way to even begin fixing this mess is to give control of both bodies of congress to the Democrats, so we can, again, have accountability in Washington.

If we, the people, cannot move to hold these lying thugs accountable for what they have done to this country and to others around the world, we do not have a Democracy!

tbe Progressive American:

The administration has a more insidious game plan instead: it has manufactured and milked this controversy to reboot its intimidation of the press, hoping journalists will pull punches in an election year. There are momentous stories far more worrisome to the White House than the less-than-shocking Swift program, whether in the chaos of Anbar Province or the ruins of New Orleans. If the press muzzles itself, its under-the-radar self-censorship will be far more valuable than a Nixonesque frontal assault that ends up as a 24/7 hurricane veering toward the Supreme Court.

Will this plan work? It did after 9/11. The chilling words articulated at the get-go by Ari Fleischer (Americans must 'watch what they say') carried over to the run-up to the Iraq war, when the administration's W.M.D. claims went unchallenged by most news organizations. That this strategy may work again can be seen in the fascinating escalation in tactics by the Bush White House's most powerful not-so-secret agent in the press itself, the Wall Street Journal editorial page. The Journal is not Fox News or an idle blogger or radio bloviator. It's the establishment voice of the party in power. The infamous editorial it ran on June 30 ('Fit and Unfit to Print'), an instant classic, doesn't just confer its imprimatur on the administration's latest crusade to conflate aggressive journalism with treason, but also ups the ante.