More on the Paper of Treason Record
The New York Times publication of sensitive information regarding banking investigations against terrorist groups appears to have legs and is taking on a life of its own. Basically, the defenders of the Times have these arguments:

• The terrorists know that we are looking at their financial transactions, so this story did not damage to national security. This is a silly argument to make, because if the story was considered so insignificant, why would the Times publish it to begin with? The fact that they did so over the objections of Administration and Congressional officials and members of the 9/11 Commission seems to indicae that the Times thought it was significant.


• Bush is the leaker-in-chief. This is just the Plame-Wilson-Rove affair redux. Adherents of this view believe that the conspiracy theory involving Karl ROve's role in revealing Valerie Plame's identity justify this leak. This argument is merely a political one. What's wrong about this is that any leaking of national secrity information hurts us--it is not political tit-for-tat.


• What the leaker did was wrong, but the Times shouldn't be held accountable. This is sort of a compromise position. It recognizes that the leaker was wrong, but fails to impose any responsibility on the Times. A related argument is that the same information appeared in the LA Times and the Wall STreet Journal. On the latter point, those papers only published the story after it appeared in the Times. The Times did get the scoop here. The main argument though is that the Times is somehow exempt from any moral responsibility for its actions. Yes, hang the leaker from the highest yardarm, but put the blame squarely on the media outlet that told the story to the whole world.

Ultimately, as Andrew Sullivan points out in that last link, nothing will happen to the Times. But a Congressional hearing over the matter would sure make me feel better.
- posted by Base10 @ 2:52 PM