That Impartial Press.....

The extremely predictable last-minute election-swaying hit piece from the Party Propagandist New York Times is just about due. Wonder what it will be this time...and if it will involve more national security leakage?

WaPo is due as well, but they'll be much more genteel and subdued.

UPDATE: Looks like Drudge has had a preview already--breaking.

It's WMD's. Who would have guessed? Rough quick count: 4 to 1 anonymous and unsourced allegations to named sources--with named sources in ambiguous context.

FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE: Went back and read the story in detail, and frankly I'm a little croggled. As Jim Geraghty asks:

I'm sorry, did the New York Times just put on the front page that IRAQ HAD A NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM AND WAS PLOTTING TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB?

Click Here for Much Much More! Free Puzzle inside every page jump!

(24 hour bump to top of queue for timeliness. Original post 20:16 Central Thursday)

What? Wait a minute. The entire mantra of the war critics has been "no WMDs, no WMDs, no threat, no threat", for the past three years solid. Now we're being told that the Bush administration erred by making public information that could help any nation build an atomic bomb.

Let's go back and clarify: IRAQ HAD NUCLEAR WEAPONS PLANS SO ADVANCED AND DETAILED THAT ANY COUNTRY COULD HAVE USED THEM.

Key graf from the story:

Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990’s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

So maybe I'm WAY off base here. I was expecting the DNC Backdoor Press New York Times to follow their hallowed tradition of the late hit for Their Side (as they see it). It was an easy prediction, I thought, and my post didn't beat the DRUDGE break by more than fifteen or twenty minutes. ("Woo hoo! GOTCHA!" I said to myself, and promptly sprained my shoulder patting myself on the back....)

And the story follows their usual pattern, complete to all the usual anonymous unnamed unsourced unverifiable expert suspects....

But the story actually backs up the WMD justification for the invasion! It says that Iraq had everything they needed to make a bomb except the fissile material. You know--yellowcake?

So many many questions here.

Cap'n Ed has much much more. Key point:

Actually, we have much, much more. [Editor note: see?] All of these documents underscore the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and show that his regime continued their work on banned weapons programs. We have made this case over and over again, but some people refused to believe the documents were genuine. Now we have no less of an authority than the New York Times to verify that the IIS documentation is not only genuine, but presents a powerful argument for the military action to remove Saddam from power.

And The Anchoress just plain leaves me in tears from laughing so hard....

Now Appearing in Select Theaters nationwide, that blockbuster new comedy...

THE GANG THAT COULDN'T THINK STRAIGHT!

UPDATE: Tom Maguire of JustOneMinute blog backtracks one of the named "experts," Peter Zimmerman, and finds something fishy.

UPDATE: I backtrack the next-named expert and find something fishy, and an apparent flat-out lie. Ray Kidder is apparently well into his 70's and retired from Lawrence Livermore 16 years ago. NYT has him as a current employee. They also fail to mention his history of activism, or his previous position of opposing the censorship of nuclear source documents.

UPDATE: More fisking of the NYT expert list and the NYT itself in this comment.

UPDATE: From RightWing NutHouse--IRONY SO THICK YOU CAN BATHE IN IT

The New York Times, a news organ that has on many occasions revealed the existence of some of the most classified intelligence programs the government uses to protect American citizens, in violation of the law, of common sense, and (my own opinion) of their patriotic duty during a time of war, now implicitly criticizes the Bush Administration for (wait for it)...releasing classified information!