All The News That's Fit To Sit On

The New York Times' public editor says the paper's explanation of their one-year delay in reporting the NSA scandal has been "woefully inadequate":

For the first time since I became public editor, the executive editor and the publisher have declined to respond to my requests for information about news-related decision-making. My queries concerned the timing of the exclusive Dec. 16 article about President Bush's secret decision in the months after 9/11 to authorize the warrantless eavesdropping on Americans in the United States.

I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future...

Keller's response was:

"There is really no way to have a full discussion of the back story without talking about when and how we knew what we knew, and we can't do that."

Sounds like they are still protecting sources while the Bush team perpetrate unconstitional crimes. These guys need to get their priorities sorted out. Or resign.