“What we’re talking about is people who are leaking classified information. It’s not news. It’s classified information our government is using to fight terrorists,” said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, of Illinois.
“Loose lips kill American people,” he added.
The nonbinding resolution, released later in the day, said the House “expects the cooperation of all news media organizations in protecting the lives of Americans and the capability of the government to identify, disrupt and capture terrorists by not disclosing classified intelligence programs such as the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program.”
You know, wasn’t too long ago Daniel Okrent was wanking away at the Times, incredibly upset that people would be so freaked out and pissed off at the state of the world to actually flip out at one of his reporters.
Do you get it now, Danny boy? Do you get how wacked out and paranoid the world has become? Do you understand what the rest of us saw coming a few mile markers back, New York Times? Do you get what you’re dealing with, Mr. Journalism Professor? Do you understand now, why I listened to all your talk about high-mindedness and civility, all your talk about working together with the powers that be, all your talk about a “cease-fire” with the administration, and was torn between laughter and head-pounding rage?
Do you get it?
THEY HATE YOU.
No, that’s not me being hysterical. That’s not me being unhinged. That’s me taking a look at the day’s news and saying well, if this isn’t the logical conclusion to six years of Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, I don’t know what is. If this isn’t the ultimate expression of the attitude of Assrocket talking about the “Pulitzer Prize for felony murder” and his shit-shack being named Time’s Blog of the Year, I don’t know what is.
This is what happens when you ignore the warning signs. This is what happens when you hold yourself above the fight and pretend it’s all too much for your tiny brains to handle. This is what happens when you don’t dignify things with answers. This is what happens. You get called killers on the floor of the House.
And it doesn’t matter that it’s ridiculous, it doesn’t matter that you know and I know what you’re for and why you did what you did. It doesn’t matter that everybody and their fucking brother knew that the Bush administration’s main thrust of terrorism prosecutions came from following organizational and personal money trails, and that we knew that because they told us so. What does matter? Is that this is what you get when you don’t fight back. They called you whores and you shrugged, so now they call you killers.
Loose lips kill Americans, quoth Fat Denny Hastert, who grows more and more extreme as his re-election bid nears. You hear that? The Speaker of the House just called you murderers. Maybe you can rise above it. Maybe you can take the high road, just one more time, as people write in to the paper demanding, quite literally, your heads. Maybe if you just stay quiet, just stay still, they won’t hit you anymore.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, and the sun goes down and comes up again. What will they call you tomorrow, if they call you killers today? When do you start speaking up? When do you start fighting back? When do you realize that Cassandra may have been noisy and rude but that she was, unlike your homegrown oracle, actually proved fucking right? When, if not on the day the people who propelled us into this war accuse you of being the true merchants of death, your offices an abbatoir of newsprint and ink?
Is this what they have to say, to get your attention?
Do you get it? Do you get it now?
A.