Sunday, February 20, 2005

New York Times announces Presidential Taping

On the front page of this morning's New York Times, you'll find David D. Kirkpatrick's "In Secretly Taped Conversations, Glimpses of Future President." Calm down, no one's been taping the cast of Jack & Bobby.

This involves George W. Bush and his spiritual partner, Doug Wead.

This overly long article notes that they established the authenticity of the tapes before moving forward with the article.

But I'm just not overly excited by this story. (Which I've heard elsewhere several times.)

Did Bush know he was being taped? Did Wead only reveal the most innocent tapes? Did Bush speak a little differently (no mention of "asshole" in the sections on the media) due to the spirituality of the person involved.

The White House isn't denying the tapes. Which is strange since they attempted to smear Paul O'Neill with charges that he'd gotten copies of his White House records through questionable means. (Hearing an NBC reporter repeat that false charge on Today may have been when I finally gave up on TV news.) (All a reporter had to do was read the introduction to Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty, not even a chapter in the book, just the intro and he would have been able to explain where the recrods came from.)

So you mean to tell me that they're not suing Wead over this? As vindictive as this adminsitration is?

Granted, in Texas intent has to be proven against the taper (malicious, et al) for it to be criminal in nature. But Texas is a part of the United States and federal laws also apply. And that could certainly create enough controversy over whether or not Wead was going to be charged and prosecuted to keep the press away from detailing the tapes.

The administration could certainly file suit and create their usual spin if they didn't want the tapes out. The fact that they do want it out makes the tapes questionable. The Bully Boy tried to deny Texas the right to his records (records as governor). Secrecy is a code word of this administartion.

So if these were the real deal (I'm not questioning the Times' authentification expert, I'm questioning the circumstances under which the recordings took place and whether Bully Boy knew he was taped), there'd be someone blustering to the press about how they were going to figure out which laws got broken.

Anyone else is welcome to their own opinion. The above is mine. Feel free to disagree at common_ills@yahoo.com.