Monday, July 03, 2006

All the news that fits the pattern?

Here's what everyone -- including one of the authors of the current banking story -- knew last year, according to the Times.

We knew that administration efforts to track terror money weren't working. Unless someone can show me a more recent Times article than this revealing that administration efforts were bearing fruit, than I think this puts things in a completely different light.

It suggests that not only was Swift secret -- because without Swift the perception was that the tracking efforts weren't working well -- it also suggests that the argument "everyone knew" because the administration kept talking about the fact that it was going after the money is somewhat disingenuous. It now seems to me that prior to this point, those claims on the part of the administration were probably being heard as yet more empty administration spin, rhetoric, boasts -- if the Times wasn't buying it, why would the terrorists, who knew their money was getting through, have believed it? (They may not have understood the critical distinction: Swift was about tracking not freezing.)

— Rantingprofs. Read it all.

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