I’m amazed that two of the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism were awarded to reporters who published classified information which compromised the efforts in the war on terrorism. One has to ask if it is right to publish sensitive information that may be received from an unelected intelligence bureaucrat. Would it be right (forget legalities) to publish, say, information which the reporter knew could result in the deaths of Americans fighting in Iraq? Or would it be ok to publish some launch sequence numbers of nuclear weapons? If not, then who should determine which materials are classified and which are not? It seems to me that the president has the duty and right to classify information. If that information is leaked and published, both the leaker and those who publish what they know to be classified information should come to justice under the law. But not only will the papers (Washington Post and NYT) and their editors and staff not be punished, but now they complain that the Bush Administration is oppressing them. Here’s what Bill Keller, one of the NYT editors recently said when interviewed about the leaks:
Times Editor Bill Keller said in an e-mail that he believed the Bush White House is on a campaign to intimidate the press. “I’m not sure journalists fully appreciate the threat confronting us,” Keller wrote. “The Times in the eavesdropping case, the Post for its CIA prison stories, and everyone else who has tried to look behind the war on terror.” Keller asserted that “there’s sometimes a vindictive tone in the way [administration officials] talk about dragging reporters before grand juries and in the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public’s business risk being branded traitors.” He warned that journalists possibly are “suffering a bit of subpoena fatigue. (Emphasis mine)
Mr. Keller, they are traitors. To deliberately publish classified materials that the enemy can use against us is treachery. You should be labeled and you should be prosecuted under the law. In the MSM’s zeal to portray Bush in a bad light, they are willing to publish anything regardless of the law and regardless of how this country may be damaged. They have such disdain for Bush that they abdicate reason, common sense and duty to country.
