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Jihadis and Wiretaps and Moonbats! Oh, My! -- Part 13
(Click here for some earlier related posts.)
Thank you Russ Vaughn for the link to the picture.
Check out this al-NYT editorial, people, then tell me again all about that fair and unbiased press:
On the Subject of Leaks
Given the Bush administration's appetite for leak investigations (three are under way), this seems a good moment to try to clear away the fog around this issue.
A democratic society cannot long survive if whistle-blowers are criminally punished for revealing what those in power don't want the public to know - especially if it's unethical, illegal or unconstitutional behavior by top officials. Reporters need to be able to protect these sources, regardless of whether the sources are motivated by policy disputes or nagging consciences. This is doubly important with an administration as dedicated as this one is to extreme secrecy.
[...]
When the government does not want the public to know what it is doing, it often cites national security as the reason for secrecy. The nation's safety is obviously a most serious issue, but that very fact has caused this administration and many others to use it as a catchall for any matter it wants to keep secret, even if the underlying reason for the secrecy is to prevent embarrassment to the White House. The White House has yet to show that national security was harmed by the report on electronic spying, which did not reveal the existence of such surveillance - only how it was being done in a way that seems outside the law.
Leak investigations are often designed to distract the public from the real issues by blaming the messenger. Take the third leak inquiry, into a Washington Post report on secret overseas C.I.A. camps where prisoners are tortured or shipped to other countries for torture. The administration said the reporting had damaged America's image. Actually, the secret detentions and torture did that.
Illegal spying and torture need to be investigated, not whistle-blowers and newspapers.
[Read the whole disgusting thing here. Hat tip: Sweetness & Light]
As far as I'm concerned the person who wrote that drivel deserves to be hung right next to James al-Risen and his sources. At least Michelle understands:
A leak is a leak is a leak
Hello, 2006. The New York Times kicked off the new year by refusing to answer its own ombudsman's questions about the timing of the newspaper's anonymous illegal leak-dependent National Security Agency monitoring story. Long live transparency and accountability.
Meanwhile, Times reporter James Risen launched his anonymous illegal leak-dependent book, "State of War," with a self-congratulatory appearance on NBC's "Today" show. Risen's leakers, he told Couric, were the opposite of the Valerie Plame case leakers because his people came forward "for the best reasons." How do we know that's true? Because Risen says it is. So there.
Risen then patted himself and his bosses on the back for their "great public service" in publishing the story (never too soon to go Pulitzer Prize-begging) and heaped more praise on his anonymous sources as "truly American patriots." Risen also told Couric that many of his law-breaking sources "came to us because they thought you have to follow the rules and you have to follow the law." Uh-huh.
[...]
If Risen's good leak/bad leak spin sounds familiar, that's because Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was plying it this weekend on Fox News Sunday. Asked about the Justice Department criminal investigation into the NYT/NSA leaks, Schumer sputtered: "There are differences between felons and whistleblowers, and we ought to wait until the investigation occurs to decide what happened."
Schumer, as I've noted previously, has some nerve pontificating about secrets and disclosures. Guess he puts his former Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staffers, Katie Barge and Lauren Weiner, in the noble "whistleblower" category. (I checked with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., last week, by the way, and the investigation into Barge and Weiner's involvement in illegally obtaining a credit report on Maryland's Lieutenant Governor Michael S. Steele is still ongoing.)
Contrary to the one-armed Democrat plumbers' wishes, you can't just selectively plug the leaks you don't like and let the other half flood freely. The law regarding disclosures of classified information does not grant an exception based on leakers' motives. See U.S. Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 37, Section 798. Nope, no Bush Derangement Syndrome exemptions there.
In any case, we'll soon see if and how long Risen is willing to stay in jail to protect his pure and patriotic illegal leakers.
Read the whole thing here, and Michelle's companion blog post here.
Rick Moran's impressed, too:
MORE JAW DROPPING IDIOCY FROM THE TIMES
If I could sputter on line, I would do so…
This piece of rancid apologia that appeared in today’s New York Times is one of the most extraordinary examples of smug, self righteous, self-pitying, and self-aggrandizing editorializing I can ever remember reading.
No, I mean it. I’ve racked my brains for a couple of hours trying to think of something even remotely similar in brazenness, in the the twisting of facts, in outright lies, and in sheer, breathtaking arrogance toward its readers but cannot for the life of me come up with anything that approaches the intellectual corruption and demonstrable immorality represented in this cynical 300 word essay defending its outing of the top secret NSA intercept program.
If ever one needed proof that the liberal worldview (if ever its adherents were voted back into power) would be dangerous to the safety and security of the United States then this editorial should put all doubts to rest. Simply put, this editorial proves once and for all that liberals would prefer that terrorists succeed in attacking us rather than do what is necessary to protect us. The key word here is “necessary,” of course. And the fact is that the Times definition of “necessary” seems to be so limited and constricting that, if left up to them, the terrorists would have a gigantic head start and a leg up in trying to kill as many of us as they can. Any possible defense that they are serious about national security can therefore be ignored.
[...]
There are so many lies, exaggerations, and calumnious thinking in this editorial that analyzing all of it would be a tiresome job, something fit for a janitor tasked with cleaning up an overflowing toilet. I will instead take some of the more egregious violations of logic and the truth in order to try and set the record straight:
[Read on here.]
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Tom Maguire:
Are
You A Good Leak, Or A Bad Leak?
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