Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Bush is the worst president EVER

New York Review of Books' review of James Risen's State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration

Nobody was supposed to know that FISA had been brushed aside. The fact that the National Security Agency (NSA), America's largest intelligence organization, had been turned loose to intercept the faxes, e-mails, and phone conversations of Americans with blanket permission by the President remained secret until the New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau learned over a year ago that it was happening. An early version of the story was apparently submitted to the Times' editors in October 2004, when it might have affected the outcome of the presidential election. But the Times, for reasons it has not clearly explained, withheld the story until mid-December, when the newspaper's publisher and executive editor—Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller—met with President Bush in the Oval Office to hear his objections before going ahead. Even then certain details were withheld.