Kill All the Lawyers? How About Taking a Look at the Press?

By Dafna Linzer - washingtonpost.com - Updated: 11:47 p.m. ET Feb. 12, 2005
The Bush administration has been flying surveillance drones over Iran for nearly a year to seek evidence of nuclear weapons programs and detect weaknesses in air defenses, according to three U.S. officials with detailed knowledge of the secret effort.

Since the U.S. officials are never identified, one can only assume they spoke on condition of anonymity. Isn't that a convenient way to get your story before the masses without having to provide objective proof of the story's veracity? Purely a personal opinion here, but individuals such as the three above really deserve to be shot, on condition of anonymity of course, for their wanton disregard and outright undermining of the national security interests of the country that is paying them.

Beyond them though, what of The Press? Why do they earn a free pass for using unnamed sources to rabble rouse, directly endanger the troops in harms way they purport to support and love wholeheartedly, and denounce before the planet the fact that Americans, in time of war, are shedding other people's blood? To read the newspaper or watch the televised newscasts, one would readily draw the conclusion that U.S. troops are doing nothing but picking off unarmed civilian women and children while facing no threat of harm whatsoever themselves. Until, of course, The Press chooses to point out how many brave and blameless U.S. men and women, children really, have sacrificed their lives needlessly in the name of the cause of the megalomaniacal madman occupying the White House.

Oops. Mustn't let factual contradictions ruin a good story. Besides, the herd of sheep known as the American public will never notice anything out of the ordinary or think anything other than what they are instructed to think.

Freedom of speech and the obligation of a free press to maintain an informed public are vital to the long term success of a free society. Reporting on some of the more grievous abuses of power committed by this and other administrations, and this staunch supporter of the current administration will be among the first to admit that such abuses exist, is a legitimate function of that free press. However, for too many in The Press, it seems the "duty" to serve the public's "right to know" has come to include disseminating information that not only do the majority of us not have a need to know but that are in fact detrimental to the wellbeing and perhaps even lives of this country's citizens when generally broadcast. Yes, as citizens we all have rights. Equally important are the responsibilities each of us bear as citizens, and those responsibilities cannot be ignored when they become inconvenient to the furthering of a particular political agenda.

Why is it though that if you use a printing press and sell to the public your demands that key government officials resign, administrations be turned out of office, and outright falsify facts to further a political objective (apologizing on page Z44 in the event you get caught) is deemed constitutionally protected freedom of the press, while if a dozen guys are found to be promulgating the same nonsense in a windowless basement they are considered guilty of treason and illegally plotting to overthrow the government?

Seems to me The Press just doesn't like the idea of regular citizen peasantry poaching the deer on their royal preserve.