NYT Lied About Timing Of NSA Article NYT Lied About Timing Of NSA Article

Captain's Quarters article: Calame: Times Lied About Timing Of NSA Article points to a recent NYT article by Byron Calame titled: "Eavesdropping and the Election: An Answer on the Question of Timing" to reopen the question of why the NYT delayed publication of their story disclosing the NSA international electronics communications surveilance program for a couple of week until after the 2004 presidential election. It suggests that instead of Keller trying to keep Bush in office, the timing was for just the opposite effect - to give Kerry a better shot at the presidency.

Left-wing pundits and bloggers have insisted that Keller spiked the story to keep George Bush in office. Keller, however, has a different take on his decision. He insists that the news would have likely helped Bush rather than hurt him, and the public support for this program after its delayed revelation last December supports that analysis. John Kerry and the Democrats had castigated Bush for the lack of visible effort to find and track terrorists, and the program's exposure would have forced Kerry to recant and suddenly argue that Bush had been too enthusiastic about fighting terrorism, a tough pirouette to execute in a grueling presidential campaign.