Gergen's Pablum

Gerber may make baby food, but via Crooks and Liars - talking head David Gergen seems to have completed his transition from reliable source to myopic inside the beltway liberal media hack on CNN today. That isn't to say that his slide hasn't been going on for some time.

GERGEN: I am glad you brought that up. This administration has engaged in secrecy at a level we have not seen in over 30 years. Unfortunately, I have to bring up the name of Richard Nixon, because we haven't seen it since the days of Nixon. And now what they're doing -- and they're using the war on terror to justify -- is they're starting to target journalists who try to pierce the veil of secrecy and find things and put them in the newspapers.

Now, in the past what the government has always done is go after the people who leak, the inside people.  That's the way they try to stop leaks. This is the first administration that I can remember, including Nixon's, that said -- and Porter Goss said this to Congress -- that we need to think about a law that would put journalists who print national security things to...bring them up in front of grand juries and put them in jail if they don't -- in effect, if they don't reveal their sources.

But see this from Powerline:

The Justice Department said "there plainly is no exemption" for the media under the Espionage Act, but added, "a prosecution under the espionage laws of an actual member of the press for publishing classified information leaked to it by a government source would raise legitimate and serious issues and would not be undertaken lightly, indeed, the fact that there has never been such a prosecution speaks for itself."

The reality is that at no time in our history, including during the Nixon presidency, has the press ever undertaken such a bold and biased attempt to discover and reveal classified information the sitting administration had, not only the right, but the good judgment to try and keep secret.

You cannot fight a war against the likes of propaganda savvy Al Qaeda and the obstructionist ACLU when the American headlines are feeding the fires of anti-war and anti-America propagandists.

I've no doubt that the majority of Americans, were they to fully understand the elements and implications of this silliness would come down favorably on the side of the Bush administration. And it's that and only that which is keeping the Dems in check, if not the media. But it is being realized in the way more and more Americans are abandoning the MSM, and most specifically the NY Times and the WaPo.

Until those organizations realize that and get in step with America, instead of presuming to know different or better, they will continue their declines in readership and stock price. Praise the almighty dollar and the common sense of Americans.

Comments

[Paulo]

I am without doubt sure that anytime or anyone that does not invite the press into full scale matters of National Security, Iraqi defense issues, or anything of a sensitive nature is now branded "secretive" or "hiding something" just because they are NOT inviting any one else that's not on the Need to Know list.

Phuck em'