Media Leak Freaks: Chickens Coming Home to Roost

Fascinating online piece today in the New York Observer's online version. Reporter Niall Stanage observes that:

When prosecutors won the right to inspect reporters’ phone records earlier this month—potentially unmasking numerous secret sources—the story barely caused a ripple.

Such a blatant threat to the freedom of the media might once have stirred national outrage, or at least a spirited debate.

But if government intrusion into the media’s rights isn’t receiving the attention it deserves, the press has only itself to blame, with leading outlets like The New York Times weighing in on the subject inconsistently and in a way that seems to be motivated more by political ideology than institutional self-interest.

Indeed. We, and for that matter, the right-side-of-the-aisle blogosphere have been pushing this simple observation for years with very little effect. But perhaps with both the Times and the Washington Post copping Pulitzers for their own highly subjective and highly treasonous leaking of secret documents, damaging the government's War on Terror (aka WW III), the media has gotten a little too cocky with "the public's right to know." Now, their obviously hard-driving leftwing disdain for this administration is coming home to roost. Their cherished ability to "protect anonymous sources" is now rapidly eroding. They only have their own adolescent irresponsibility to blame.

The report explains the particulars of this case:

The recent ruling on phone records was issued by a federal appeals court in New York on Aug. 1. It related to a grand-jury investigation into who told Times reporters that two Islamic charities were going to be the subject of government action in 2001.

Prosecutors contend that phone calls the reporters made seeking comment from the charities tipped off the organizations to forthcoming raids and asset freezes.

He then gets to the heart of this matter:

The editorial and opinion pages of The Times, in particular, have condemned disclosures that have been helpful to the Bush administration, while defending the broad right of officials to secretly pass on information.

Citing the increasingly phony "Plame Affair" and the pre-Iraq War intelligence material backgrounding conducted by the Administration in its own defense, Stanage wonders why this is somehow bad while the NYT and WaPo security leaks are somehow good. He then pretty much answers his own question:

The problem with [the administration's] leaks, for at least some in the media, seemed to be that the information they revealed favored Mr. Bush.

In an April editorial during the N.I.E. flap, The Times huffed that “this president has never shown the slightest interest in disclosure, except when it suits his political purposes.”

Stanage's wrap up is factual but devastating:

The same could be said of almost all Mr. Bush’s critics. Yet The Times, like any other media organization, would not (and should not) complain about briefings by the President’s detractors if the details they revealed were true.

The press’ most esteemed outlets have embraced this selective argument and, in so doing, have ceded precious ground to their tormentors.

That ground will not be easily won back. And m­any reporters will yet have cause to rue the confused rationales offered up by the high priests of their profession.

He's got that right. We'd add further that the Administration's leaked material was offered by a beleagured White House desperately attempting to defend this country from a largely unknown foe while fending off a hostile press actively seeking to defeat the U.S. on the battlefield by revealing to the terrorists and to the world each and every trick in our intelligence arsenal that might make a difference. Further, before these activities occurred, it's clear that plenty of legal advice had been sought ahead of time to minimize the chance that, in attempting to defend the country by defending their own actions, the Administration didn't violate the law.

It's now increasingly clear that they didn't violate the law, either in "PlameGate" or in the alleged WMD misinformation flap. On the other hand, it is by no means clear that the Times and the Post did not commit collective treason by aiding and abetting the dissemination of national security information by disgruntled, Bush-hating govies.

The MSM's continuing lack of balance, not to mention their complete disdain for discretion and morality, has undermined their claim to privilege. Acting in league with the armada of far-left critics and politicians seeking to destroy this Administration, they have destroyed any argument they once might have had as to their objectivity. And they are now beginning to pay the price.

Don't be surprised if the Attorney General is readying more indictments for the Pulitzer Prize winning leakmongers at both papers. It will serve them right. They only have themselves and Karl Marx to blame.

Connect the dots. Selective reporting of damaging security leaks. "Fake but accurate" memos. Printing on a massive scale of obviously Photoshopped Middle-East war photogs snapped by partisan Islamofascist hacks hired by cheapskate news organizations and not carefully examined before publication. Smarmy interviews with "authentic" Islamofascist murderers showing their "human side." We witnessed this kind of propaganda from the left throughout the long and arduous Cold War. (Which we one, by the way, to the great anguish of the die-hard left.) But now it's the reporters who are indulging in it in an incredible display of hatred and disdain for their fellow countrymen who desperately want to be free from lurking terror. Is it any wonder why media credibility is now lower in some opinion polls than the credibility of a bow-tied used car salesman?