The Fruits of Treason

Bill Keller, Pinch Salzburger, and the usual gang of seditious Bolsheviks at The New York Times are finding out how bitter the fruits of treason can be.

Andrew McCarthy calls a spade a spade:

What on earth would George Washington have made of Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, and his comrades in today’s American media?

What would he have made of transparently politicized free-speech zealots who inform for the enemy and have the nerve to call it “patriotism.”

Who say, “If you try to isolate barbarians to make them hand up the other barbarians, we will expose it.”

“If you try to intercept enemy communications — as victorious militaries have done in every war ever fought — we will tell all the world, including the enemy, exactly what you’re up to.”

“If you track the enemy’s finances, we will blow you out of the water. We’ll disclose just what you’re doing and just how you’re doing it. Even if it’s saving innocent lives.”

And why this last? Remember five years ago, back when they figured “you’re not doing enough” was the best way to bash the Bush administration? Remember the Times and its ilk — disdainful of aggressive military responses — tut-tutting about how the disruption of money flows was the key to thwarting international terrorists. So why compromise that?

Is there some illegality going on in the government’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (exposed by the Times and other news outlets Friday)? No, no laws have been broken. Is there some abuse of power? No, there seem to have been extraordinary steps taken to inform relevant officials and win international cooperation. Why then? Why take action that can only aid and comfort the enemy in wartime?

Because, Keller haughtily pronounced, American methods of monitoring enemy money transfers are “a matter of public interest.”

Really? The Times prattles on about what it claims is a dearth of checks and balances, but what are the checks and balances on Bill Keller? Can it be that our security hinges on whether the editor of an antiwar, for-profit journal thinks some defense measure might be interesting?

Well, here’s something truly interesting: There are people in the U.S. intelligence community who are revealing the nation’s most precious secrets.

The media aspire to be the public’s watchdog? Ever on the prowl to promote good government? Okay, here we have public officials endangering American lives. Public officials whose violation of a solemn oath to protect national defense information is both a profound offense against honor and a serious crime.

What about the public interest in that? What about the public interest in rooting out those who betray their country in wartime?

No such public interest exists, of course, in the minds of the blue-blooded Bolshies who comprise The Times' editorial board. That smoking crater a few blocks away is merely another urban renewal project.

Jed Babbin thinks the whole bunch ought to show they're above 5th Avenue fashion by trading in the bespoke suits for something in orange with a stenciled number on the back:

Throughout our history those of us who have been entrusted with secrets have found ourselves in the good company of politicians who can be trusted, judges who will use their power to protect secrets, and newsmen who place the interests of their nation above their own political agendas. That era is over. America is overpopulated with leakers, liars, political hacks, and enemies at whose disposal is a media ever-eager to publish any secret. No matter the risk to the nation, many in the media will publish anything that advances their political agenda and not incidentally earns them fame and fortune. Always running behind the media are a White House and Justice Department ill-disposed to do anything about even the most damaging and treasonous leaks.

It is beyond parody that the most damaging leaks -- such as those that led to the CIA terrorist jail story in the Washington Post and the New York Times stories on the NSA terrorist surveillance program -- have gone unpunished while the Justice Department's loose cannon, Patrick Fitzgerald, pursues Scooter Libby like Javert pursued Jean Valjean. Media mentionables often opine on "tipping points" in Iraq, on the economy and so forth. These points are, theoretically, watershed events that decide the future. We must demand that the latest New York Times disclosure of yet another classified anti-terror program -- this time the financial tracing of terrorist electronic fund transfers through the Belgian "SWIFT" consortium -- be such an event. How can secrets be kept if no leakers are punished, and what will become of the First Amendment if the press remains the enemy of the safety of the nation it supposedly serves?

That the leakers of the CIA secret terrorist prisons and the NSA terrorist surveillance program aren't rotting in jail, that the Washington Post's Dana Priest and the New York Times's James Risen and Eric Lichtblau haven't been thrown in jail until they reveal their sources makes mockery of our laws and our nation's security. In those two cases and many more, leaks have materially damaged our ability to fight terrorism. Governments that used to support us in secret don't because they fear exposure. Terrorists and their leaders change their methods of operation making their plans harder to interdict and the terrorists harder to catch. The Justice Department whines that investigating leak cases is tough because their internal guidelines -- parts of the U.S. Attorneys' Manual written for another era when the press generally respected secrets -- say that reporters should only be compelled to give up their sources when no other investigative path proves fruitful. Those guidelines should be thrown away because the press's conduct is despicable and unlawful.

What, then, shall we do with "Punch" Sulzberger, Bill Keller, Jill Abramson and the rest of the ideologues who control the New York Times? They are the new war profiteers. When they learned of the NSA terrorist surveillance program they kept the secret for a year for which the NSA was grateful. But in that year, James Risen wrote his book on the story and it was released on the same day the Times published a front-page story on the NSA program after the President had personally asked that it not be published. The Sulzbergers, Kellers and Abramsons are a new and vastly worse breed of war profiteers. Arms manufacturers may make bigger profits than some think is due them, but they deliver products essential to winning a war. The products of the N.Y. Times and its ilk are not only unnecessary, they materially assist the enemy.

Bill and Pinch, war profiteers? Like some sort of scheming, greedy capitalist? Surely you must be joking, Jed.

Why, I'll post Bill Keller's impassioned defense of his traitorous little disclosure right---waitaminute; he's put it behind his firewall, where the proles have to provide personal information to see it.

No matter---Instapundit was unimpressed.

Besides, Hugh Hewitt quoted it extensively in his must-read Fisking of Keller's weaselly little doggerel.

Michael Barone wants to know why The New York Times hates Americans.

Hmmm, that would be an interesting story. Too bad we won't see it in The Times.