Critical question for 2006 candidates

Scott Johnson, of powerlineblog.com, forwards a letter from an Army officer in Iraq:

”[D]o the candidates who wish to replace President Bush support the idea that we should use all legal means necessary to find out what the terrorists are doing to kill our families, and that those programs should have their constitutionality worked out behind closed doors with the advice and consent of the Congress; or do the candidates support the idea that there are inherent rights that terrorists hold, even as they try to kill us, and that newspapers have the right to notify them of programs that may interfere with those rights, regardless of the legality of that program. The New York Times could not possibly have known what the President discussed with Congress about this program. The Left seems to be arguing that the intercepts were justifiably written about in an open forum, available to our enemies, because they may be illegal. I don’t support that view of things, and I don’t believe most Americans do. Such exposure used to be treasonous. I’m anxious to see that point discussed by the candidates. I’d like to make sure that the politician I am voting into office in 2006 or 2008 understand that there are appropriate forums to discuss the legality of such black programs, and they do not include the New York Times.”

The post-‘60’s left is determined to carry the lessons they derived from self-described victories of their ‘60’s crusade against the U.S. in Vietnam to even more illogical extremes.

The New York Times’ revealing of the NSA’s program for intercepting communications between foreign enemies, even if a few involved calls to legal or illegal residents in the U.S., is not The “Pentagon Papers” over again. (Scroll through powerlineblog.com for the past few weeks for in-depth legal analyses of the legality of the NSA taps.)

The Pentagon Papers were actually little more than a historical collection of briefing papers and discussions from the prior decade. Almost all of its differences of opinion in developing policy were already well and publicly already known. Top secrets, especially ones involving current war operations, were not revealed.

That’s quite a difference from the New York Times’ latest coup, and by coup I mean direct uprising against the lawful order of the United States, by revealing current actionable intelligence in the midst of war.

The Associated Press is a willing collaborator in this act of treason by publishing its slanted poll of how Americans feel about this. The AP’s disreputable survey is ballyhooed across America’s frontpages (or page 2 or 3) that 56% of Americans are in favor of court warrants before any intercepts involving anyone in the United States, even if in contact with a foreign terrorist, and doesn’t reveal that the AP’s poll sample is seriously and unrepresentatively skewed. (Fisk of this poll’s demographics.)

The media, as far as I’m concerned and I’m sure enough members of Congress to make the difference, can kiss goodbye to its much desired cozy-blanket of federal shielding of all sources.

The leading media has made itself a prime issue of 2006, as far as I’m concerned and I’m hoping enough members of Congress and candidates for such seats, even more than by its blatantly biased efforts at controlling the 2004 election.

All candidates should be demanded to answer whether they believe the media is the ultimate arbiter of national security, or lawfully elected and appointed representatives. If those who revealed secrets to the New York Times wanted to, they had the availability of going to members of the Congressional intelligence committees.

As the Times’ resident joke Maureen Dowd posed sexily in asking why she can’t find a man, can we look forward to Bill Keller and Arthur Sulzberger posing in fishnet stockings and mini-skirts trolling for MoveOn’ers to pick them up. Readers are more and more avoiding them. (See here, for example.)

Another of the Times’ resident jokes, its so-called “public editor” ombudsman (whom Mediacrity calls its “empty suit), avoids asking the central question of New York Times’ management: Are you refusing to speak to me because it will reveal how lawless your actions are, for when you are prosecuted?

I can hardly wait for that trial. The mainstream media can be expected to howl as they never have before, and further demark their demise.