An Open Letter to the Editor of the N.Y. Times

Dear Bill Keller:

Shaun Mullen here from Kiko's House.

Presumptious as it may seem -- you the big New York Times executive editor and me the little blogger -- I wanted to touch bases before we got too far into the mid-term election season.

As your paper has reported, the Republican-dominated Congress has dropped any pretense of doing anything meaningful. It is focusing on saving its election year ass -- and giving its beleaguered president a bump -- by concentrating on the only issues where it believes it still has credibility with voters. That would be homeland security and the War on Terror.

It matters not that the Bush administration's record, let alone that of Congress, has been pretty lousy on both counts. The Republicans see homeland security and terrorism as wedge issues. It's not that they want to "win" the War on Terror, they just don't want to lose the election. In fact, they've dubbed this month "Security September."

I myself don't think the Republicans stand much of a chance of hanging onto the House and perhaps even the Senate unless there is a major kerfuffle on the homeland security-terror front, so big that voters who were fleeing their trainwreck are persuaded to stay on board.

We can't depend on Osama bin Laden for that kerfuffle. And while the Justice Department can always pounce on a bunch of hapless wingnuts like the terrorist wannabes it busted in Miami a while back, methinks the White House is going to have to manufacture something really big if the Republicans are going to succeed in scaring the bejesus out of us.

That's where The Times comes in.

Remember how you revealed well after the fact that The Times had held off publishing its story on the secret National Security Agency domestic spying program in the weeks before the Bush-Kerry presidential election in 2004 because you didn't want the Gray Lady to be accussed of trying to influence the outcome?

As a longtime newspaperman, I embraced the decision because I have, to an extent, walked in your shoes and been confronted with similar decisions. But the further we get from your disclosure the less responsible the decision seems.

Which brings me to the here and now: I and a whole lot of other folks expect The Times, as the first line of media defense against a White House and GOP spin machine capable of anything, to blow the whistle loud and long when we're being diddled. It will be only a matter of time before we are.

And should you have another blockbuster in the can like the NSA story, please don't hold back, okay? It's not because I want the Democrats to win. They're capable of making as big a mess of things as the Republicans, so this isn't a partisan thing. It's a U.S. thing. As in its future.

-- Thanks a heap, SHAUN