NYT editorial

An editorial entitled The Trust Gap from this morning's New York Times is making the rounds in the blogosphere today and so I would be remiss if I did not bring it to you. You have to register to read articles on the NYT website but it's worth it for this one. (I never get junk mail from them, by the way.) Here's how it gets started:

We can't think of a president who has gone to the American people more often than George W. Bush has to ask them to forget about things like democracy, judicial process and the balance of powers — and just trust him. We also can't think of a president who has deserved that trust less.

This has been a central flaw of Mr. Bush's presidency for a long time. But last week produced a flood of evidence that vividly drove home the point.

The editorial then goes on to talk about domestic spying, the prison camps, and the war in Iraq. Then it ends like this:

Like many other administrations before it, this one sometimes dissembles clumsily to avoid embarrassment. (We now know, for example, that the White House did not tell the truth about when it learned the levees in New Orleans had failed.) Spin-as-usual is one thing. Striking at the civil liberties, due process and balance of powers that are the heart of American democracy is another.

Finally, the New York Times is finding its true voice again after shilling for the administration in the lead up to the war in Iraq. Let's hope it continues to speak from a position of integrity.