But the problem for the Times is that the important story was not Freeman’s appointment, but the response to it, which leapt from the blogosphere to Capitol Hill awhile back. And by the middle of this week, we were not “approaching the point” where a story on that campaign was in order—we’d passed it some time ago. As early as Feb. 27, reports were appearing that Charles Schumer, the powerful Democratic senator from New York, had expressed his misgivings about Freeman to the White House. On March 3, a group of congressmen requested the inspector general’s investigation. And on Monday, a group of GOP senators took their complaints directly to Blair, Freeman’s would-be boss.
Whether or not the NIC chairmanship is objectively important, a lot of fairly powerful people seemed to have an interest in keeping it out of Chas Freeman’s hands, for reasons that seemed largely driven by his views on the Middle East. At root, the dispute was over the foreign policy viewpoints that public officials—even fairly obscure ones—are “allowed” to hold. The very fact that so much effort was expended in a battle over a mid-level position was an important story about the broader struggle to control the future direction of America’s foreign policy—one that could have, and should have, been covered before this episode ended.
The Times’s inattentiveness to the story not only kept its readers in the dark while the story was unfolding, it also put the paper at a competitive disadvantage when Freeman did, in fact, withdraw. Mazzetti’s article in Wednesday’s print edition was one of the weaker pieces anywhere about the controversy. Yesterday’s follow-up was better, but the Times’s coverage didn’t add much to what had already been reported by, among others, Ben Smith of Politico, who filed his recap two days earlier, within hours of Freeman’s exit. And it fell well short of what the Washington Post was reporting by that point, even though the Post had beaten the Times to the story by only a day.
Sometimes, a day makes all the difference.
What about the Washington Times? They were apparently the only major newspaper that covered the story from its inception?
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 13 Mar 2009 at 03:52 PM
If a candidate for a government office - even "a fairly obscure one" - has inappropriate financial and political links to foreign governments, than he and his "views" should be deemed inappropriate for intelligence work or most any other government service. It also seems clear that Freeman backed off because he was facing an investigation into his financial and political ties to China and Saudi Arabia, not to mention his connection to an upcoming Chinese oil deal with Iran.
#2 Posted by Richard Z. Chesnoff, CJR on Fri 13 Mar 2009 at 09:04 PM
That's correct. There was an editorial in the Washington Post very emphatically applauding Freeman's withdrawal, and saying he shouldn't have been considered for the job in the first place.
#3 Posted by Anne Nonymous, CJR on Mon 16 Mar 2009 at 04:39 PM
The story of Chas Freeman withdrawing his name for this position shows how much the Israeli Lobby in Washington has power and would not relinquish that power easily, In fact they want the general's Blairs scalp, in order to show the Obama's Adminstration that he could not touch the Israeli hawks or challenge their occupation of Palestinian lands. I am sorry to see that Israel and its agents has blackmailed America to this extent.
#4 Posted by George Rooh, CJR on Wed 18 Mar 2009 at 01:38 PM