Part II With Bill Keller's Priggishness

This morning, Thomas took Mr. Keller to task. However, I do not feel that we did a good enough job of refuting his foolish aloofness. So, I will pick up the transcript where Thomas left off:

CR: Yeah, of course. Treason, questioning your patriotism, how does that sit with you?

BK: It does not sit well with me at all. I have a large staff of people who work for me, who are not frivolous about this kind of matter, who are not unAmerican, who are in fact not agnostic or neutral in the War On Terror. We have...when I hear somebody yelling treason in a case like this, I want to have them go over, as I did in May, and visit our Baghdad bureau, where we've got people who put their own lives at risk to keep people informed about what's going on. Not just Americans, we've got a vast network of reporters and support staff who are Iraqis. You know, for us, the War On...

CR: You've got a man on trial in China.

BK: Well, we've got a man on trial in China, too. We've got a lot of people...but specifically, on the War On Terror, I mean, look at not just the Times, Danny Pearl was murdered trying to figure out how the terrorist network works. All of the newspapers sent people into the rubble of 9/11. This is personal for us. It's not something that we take lightly. And to cast aspersions on our seriousness or our patriotism, I think, is just unfair.

While I do feel for the reporter in China, and defend them as much as I have defended bloggers in the past for being apprehended, it is moot in the general discussion. A point where he can garner a level of sympathy. However he does address the acharge of treason being bandied about. Let me state, for the record, that to charge anyone at the New York Times with treason would be a stretch, at best. And the case would likely fail. To prove treason is no easy task, and it is the most tossed around charge right now on our side. I disavow anyone who does use the term treason to describe actions like this. It is not. They did break the law regarding the release and handling of classified material (namely being in possession of them in the first place), and their justification for their crime is like others in the MSM. It comes down to money. Selling newspapers. If anything, the New York Times is a war profiteer.

And we cast no allegations of unAmerican activities to these people. I do firmly believe that they do love this nation. They simply dislike the general direction our side takes it in, and I know they utterly dislike the president. That is where their motivations come from; being able to give this administration a headache. And they have done a phenomenal job of doing precisely that.

CR: Why...help us understand, because a lot of people are talking about this. The role of a newspaper in terms of how you see it as a newspaperman, first, and as a citizen, second.

BK: I see our job in times like this as helping people judge how well their government is doing at defending them. And that means we have to lay out the information, pro and con, not unfiltered, not without trying to assess it, but to lay out the information so that voters, citizens, can make up their mind whether they're being well-served. That's the job.

CR: And how'd this story factor into that? I mean, whether they are being well-served by their leaders?

BK: Well, I think our job is not to tell people what they're supposed to think. It's to give them the material so that they can make up their own minds. And in this case, I think a lot of people will look at the story of this program and say this is a good thing. I'm glad we're doing this. Probably most people are delighted that we are trying to track down the people who finance terror. And that's fine. I mean, you don't just write about the programs that are questionable or illegal or ineffective. You write about as much as you can within the bounds of common sense and protecting lives.

Has he no shame? The role of newspaper is to present the facts. It is not to take information that they know damn good and well is classified, and write or produce a story about it. They should show more restraint in doing things like this. As a blogger, we have a responsibility to our readers--no matter how small their numbers may be--to tell the truth, but show some sort of restraint. ANYTHING we receive via wire reports in this war we take a close look at. We have to. We do not want to make a mistake similar to the purposeful moves by the New York Times. And yes, they were purposeful. Read Thomas's post from this morning, and Bill Keller admits that he would have likely published these stories regardless of what the administration had said.

CR: The head of intelligence, the Deparment of Intelligence now. Will this change anything, the way you approach these stories? Does the fact that there's been such controversy change anything?

BK: I hope not. I really hope not. I mean, it would be nice if something productive came out of this whole discussion of the role of the press, because there is, obviously, confusion about why people who are not elected and have this kind of power handed to them.

I must ask what precisely Mr. Keller is implying with that last statement. Is he referring to the president, himself? Falling back on the Left's mantra of "selected, not elected," or is he referring to the people in positions that are appointed? He does not clarify this statement. As for the "role of the press," our Founding Fathers deemed them the "fourth rail." They were, in effect, a de facto check against the government. They knew this then, and we know it now. However, over the past forty, or so, years, the so-called "power" they wield has gone to their heads, and they are taking risks with this nation's security now. Dan Rather was routed from CBS News after peddling phony documents. Eason Jordan was jerked right off the CNN stage after accusing our troops of committing war crimes. And now the New York Times's Bill Keller is telling everyone that we should be kissing his feet rather than chastising him. The utter gall emanating from this man is positively sickening.

CR: It's a very interesting observation I hear all the time, you know, people who come to this table and say the New York Times has not kept the administration's foot to the fire on this case. They didn't raise enough questions before we went in, you've had a certain mea culpa on that, in which you wrote a letter, as I remember, about the coverage of WMD.

BK: Right.

CR: You actually wrote a letter, saying well, maybe did not do the kind of job we should.

BK: That's right.

CR: So a lot of people on the left say the Times hasn't been as tough on the administration as they want to. On the other hand, I hear people at this table on the right say boy, the New York Times just hates George Bush, and whenever they have a chance to make a call that will do, will drive home that point, they do it.

BK: Well, I can find you a lot of people who'll testify that they believed that the New York Times hated Bill Clinton when he was president, too.

On the issue of WMDs, I note that the New York Times gave little coverage to Senator Santorum's announcement regarding the WMDs we did find. So, does the Times have egg all over its face for the numerous editorials they wrote criticizing the administration for Iraq's lack of WMDs? It certainly seems so to us, as WE have always maintained that WMDs were there. We have done the digging and the research. WE knew there were some left over that were unaccounted for. Captain Ed has been following up on some of the Iraqi documents recently, and speculates that those WMDs may have headed for Russia, not Syria. We know they were moved, it is simply a matter of where.

And as for who the Times "hated" more between George Bush and Bill Clinton, who cares? He dodges the overall question by bringing up Bill Clinton. We know they dislike the current president. Nothing carries more vitriol and spite that a Maureen Dowd or Molly Ivins op-ed piece. We know the Times does not like this man, but he is the president, and at the least he deserves the respect his office demands.

CR: All governments like to control information.

BK: All governments, they want to control information.

CR: Everyone I've ever seen or known.

BK: They like to have their message come out their way, and that's perfectly understandable. But we're not fulfilling our function if we take everything they say at face value.

There is a difference between an "agenda," which is what comes from the White House, and classified materials that are that way for a reason. There is a difference between how the White House would spin an intern scandal, and releasing information related to the defense of our nation. Governments, naturally, want to keep secrets out of the hands of our enemies, and the easiest way to do that is to keep such information out of the public's hands. While many of us do know how to keep secrets (believe me, I have a few of my own), our society is truly a gabby one at that. We talk to people we meet in life, whether it is in person or over the Internet. And over the Internet, do we really know we are speaking with? NHo, that sort of information is best kept under the wraps that governments create for them. And they most assuredly do not need to be in the hands of journalists whose job it is to report news. As Bill Keller has basically equated with this story, it is simply "news" in the "public's interest" as far as he is concerned.

CR: So when it comes down to this question, it's your judgment versus their judgment. That's when...

BK: Well, that's the way the guys who invented the country set it up. Yes.

CR: Thank you for coming.

BK: Okay.

That is the end of the interview, and our readers will be reading the bulk of it. I should note for our readers that this is not the entire thing. We cut out personal chit-chat between Charlie Rose and Bill Keller, and focused solely on the gist of the interview. To end, though, I need to respond to the sheer fact that Bill Keller has no clue what he is talking about with his final comment. While the Framers did establish certain freedoms for the press, those freedoms are not absolute by any means. There are limitations to it, and among them would be information that is detrimental to the security of the nation. The argument should never come down to one person, unelected, arbitrarily deciding for the nation what is and is not safe to release in terms of secrets.

And perhaps that is the one thing that Bill Keller does not seem to fathom. There are times where it is simply not proper or correct to report on certain news. Now, if this were a case involving something the government was doing that was illegal, then of course the support should be there to bring it to the nation's attention. But the NSA surveiallance program is not illegal whatsoever. In fact it is not only legal, but upheld by the FISA Court of Review. This financial tracking program was also not illegal. The only common denominator shared by these programs is that they were used to track down our enemies here and abroad. With both of them open for discussion now, thanks to the New York Times, our enemies are currently keenly aware of them.

The primary reason we did not want them knowing about either program was so that they would continue making the mistakes that makes them so easy to find. We can arrest them or kill them much easier if they do not the scope of our ability to hunt them. And that is what much of this war is about. It is a hunt. In the classic sense, al-Qaeda are the foxes, and we are the hounds nipping at their heels. And every time the New York Times pulls an audacious stunt like this, it gives our enemy an edge. THAT is the point he seems unable to come to grips with. And it is also the driving reason why those in the MSM seem to be living in some sort of bubble. It is not a healthy one to live in, to be sure, because it only fuels the conceited, cavalier attitude they seem so often to have.

Marcie