Rep. Peter King Calls For Prosecution of New York Times

And he callls them, correctly, treasonous. Hot Air has the video.

First will have to come the predicate. That predicate will be a report that suspicious transactions, formerly under surveillance, have been moved from the SWIFT system.

If that happens, there's a real possibility Al Qaeda's Intelligence Agency, also called the New York Times, will be facing some heat. At least the public will accept jailing Keller, Sulzberger, Risen and the other reporters involved until they give up their traitor/sources.

Bill Keller offers up a gassy melange of generalities and bromides to justify his treason.

Here's a question. If the press is indeed the Fourth Estate of government, as they ceaselessly tell us they are, why do they not make themselves available for tough questioning as do all other branches of government? (Well, okay, except the judiciary.)

Would the press accept it if all politicians decided to no longer answer direct questions with tough follow ups, but merely put out self-serving missives such as Keller?

If the press is as vital to democracy as the press insists it is (and I actually believe it is myself), why are they so determined to act without accountability?

"The Predicate:" I want to clarify I'm talking about a political predicate for prosecuting the NYT, or at least demanding they cough up their sources, not a legal one. There's enough legal predicate to haul them before a grand jury and compel them to divulge their witnesses or face jail until they do; they've probably broken the law by printing classified information, and probably could be prosecuted for that.

But then, there was a legal case to prosecute Jihad Johnny Walker Lindh for treason, too -- but we didn't. Going after a newspaper is a big step and no one will do so without public support for such a move.

As someone a lot smarter than me observed, we've usually avoided this problem in the past because the press and government worked under the terms of a tacit truce -- the government would give it a free hand to publish whatever it wanted, so long as the press respected the government's occasional demands to forgo publishing crucial national security information. The press has been acting irresponsibly and even treasonously, driven crazy with Bush hatred.

The press has broken the truce that has kept the peace since the Pentagon Papers case, putting us into a strange new world where jailing newspaper men is not only thinkable, but increasingly necessary if we are to avoid the mass murder of American citizens.

This is the consequence of the Left's silly jihad against the press, claiming it "doesn't stand up to Bush enough." The media, being firmly on the left, takes such criticisms to heart, and now, to prove its mettle to the only Americans whose opinions (or lives) it values, it now acts as Al Qaeda's unofficial US-based intelligence agency.

Jane's -- the big British defense tech publisher -- has been called the world's biggest private intelligence agency. No more. Now it's the NYT, and it's subcontracting itself out to Al Qaeda.

posted by Ace at 10:25 PM

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