Why the New York Times is Losing Cred.

Powerline has the lead blog in a whole slow freight train of observations on the rate of decline of the NYT, which now scants its ledes and story-line toward its own agenda regardless of the facts:

New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau has a considerable career investment (and, I suspect, an ideological investment as well) in the idea that the NSA program is illegal. It would seem that Lichtblau's preconceptions and biases prevented him from accurately reporting what happened in the Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday. His suggestion that the main thrust of the judges' testimony was to "voice skepticism about the president's constitutional authority" is simply wrong; in fact, I can't find a single line in more than 100 pages of transcript that supports Lichtblau's reporting. It's a sad thing when a once-respected newspaper can't be counted on for a straight account of a Congressional hearing.

Captain Ed concurs and notes Eric Lichtblau's massive conflict of interest, something which the ethically-challenged Grey Lady ignores:

Instead of expressing skepticism, the judges confirm that the matter is far from settled, and in fact told Congress that they don't have the jurisdiction to make the judgment. What they did tell the Judiciary members is that President Bush's arguments have a strong element of validity and probably are correct. Unfortunately for Lichtblau, that undermines the whole premise of his book -- and apparently that can't be tolerated.

Another Powerline Heavy-Hitter follows up with more examination of the transcript in a long blog here and concludes, quoting Judge Kornblum:

"Judge Kornblum: To be admissible, the evidence would have had to have been lawfully seized or lawfully obtained and the standard that the district judge would use is that, depending upon where this is, is the law in his circuit. In most of the circuits, the law is clear that the President has the authority to do warrantless surveillance if it is to collect foreign intelligence and it is targeting foreign powers or agents. If the facts support that, then the district judge could make that finding and admit the evidence, just as they did in Truong-Humphrey."(Emphasis added.) Judge Kornblum's reference to Truong-Humphrey is to the federal appellate cases that acknowledge president's inherent authority to order warrantless foreign intelligence surveillance, previously discussed by John here.

In short, I don't think that the judges can fairly be described as having voiced skepticism regarding the president's constitutional authority to order the NSA surveillance program. Having reviewed the transcript of their testimony, however, I am voicing skepticism that Eric Lichtlbau and the New York Times are reporting on matters related to the NSA program in good faith.

Since the Jayson Blair debacle, the NYT has been making serious marketing and journalistic mistakes, although Keller could not have been worse than Howell Raines would have been had the feckless Harley-hogger Pinch kept that ideologue in place.

I wonder if anyone at the Times has noticed that the pay-per-view Times Select has reduced the quotability quotient of its leading Op-Ed squad leaders, which in the case of Brooks and Friedman means a reduction in the discourse available on blogs?