Crackdown On Leakers Has MSM Panties All Bunched Up

The Washington Post reports that:

The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws.

Excellent news! It's past time for such a crackdown, as recent leaks of classified material to the New York Times amply demonstrate.

And no doubt we can count on the Patriots of the Press to fully engage and help the government root out the traitors who disclose secret tactics and strategies to our enemies.

Well, perhaps in an alternate universe:

Some media watchers, lawyers and editors say that, taken together, the incidents represent perhaps the most extensive and overt campaign against leaks in a generation, and that they have worsened the already-tense relationship between mainstream news organizations and the White House.

"There's a tone of gleeful relish in the way they talk about dragging reporters before grand juries, their appetite for withholding information, and the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors," said New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, in a statement responding to questions from The Washington Post. "I don't know how far action will follow rhetoric, but some days it sounds like the administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad."

The unauthorized release of classified materials to the press is treason. And treason has never been an American value, except that is, among certain elements of the mainstream press, who value circulation and book sales over the security of their countrymen.

Also posted at The Jawa Report and Vince Aut Morire.