The NY Times Slimes is at it again

Can't they even pretend to put the best interests, safety, and security of this country ahead of a scoop? It's not even a scoop so much as it's a chance to make Bush look bad... Why else would they publish this? The memo, written by national security adviser Stephen Hadley and sent to President Bush, offers a candid and critical assessment of Iraq's embattled leader. Now it appears that publication of the classified memo's contents by The New York Times may have prompted the cancellation of the first of a pair of formal meetings the president was to hold with Maliki in the capital city of Amman. Mr. Bush arrived in Jordan Wednesday evening, local time. He was to sit down with the Iraqi Prime Minister and the Jordanian King shortly thereafter. Instead came an announcement that the session would proceed without Maliki. Here's an excerpt of the memo the NY Slimes published and you tell me there was a reason for publishing this other than the fact that it said "classified" on it and it would make Bush look bad. "Despite Maliki's reassuring words, repeated reports from our commanders on the ground contributed to our concerns about Maliki's government. Reports of nondelivery of services to Sunni areas, intervention by the prime minister's office to stop military action against Shia targets and to encourage them against Sunni ones, removal of Iraq's most effective commanders on a sectarian basis and efforts to ensure Shia majorities in all ministries -- when combined with the escalation of Jaish al-Mahdi's (JAM) [the Arabic name for the Mahdi Army] killings -- all suggest a campaign to consolidate Shia power in Baghdad." That's exactly the kind of info you want from your troops on the ground with the kind of analysis you need from intel. And it's certainly not the kind of thing that you publish on the front page of America's "paper of record." All it does it make it look like we don't trust Maliki when it's just an honest assessment of what's going on on the ground in Iraq. Instead of having cards to play in a diplomatic meeting with Maliki, Bush has zilch. He's actually got less than zilch, he's on the defensive, trying to difuse the mess created by the NY Slimes. And what about the troops on the ground? How supportive of our troops will the Iraqi government be when they know that it's likely what they say could end up as tomorrow's headline? Will they cooperate fully with our troops? Will they be honest with their info or will they just tell the commanders what they think the commanders want to hear, putting a good face on so they look good in the Times? Still think reporting like this makes us a stronger country?