The New York Times Fiasco

I saw an AP article yesterday about the disclosure by the New York Times of the United States' government's efforts to track terrorist finances through accessing data held in the SWIFT clearinghouse in Brussels related to international transfers of funds. The article, like all of these types of articles, has pretenses to objectivity in that it quotes both sides of the issue. On the one side is an irate President Bush, bemoaning the publication of classified information about an intelligence-gathering operation that is working to help us identify and interdict terrorist activities. On the other hand -- supposedly -- there are people who claim the public's "right to know" and individuals' "right to privacy" must be weighed against the national security interest.

The problem with this formulation -- so even-handed, so judicious, so balanced -- is that one side is clearly, indisputably right, and the other side is clearly, indisputably wrong.

First, there is no such thing as the public's "right to know" classified information. The notion is a non sequitur -- by definition, classified information is information that it is illegal for the public to know. The public does not have a right to know classified information, period.

Second, there are no privacy rights implicated. Again, by definition, you don't have a privacy interest in information that you have given to a third-party bank. There is no such thing as a banker-customer privilege, like an attorney-client or doctor-patient privilege. I get people's bank records in litigation all the time as a matter of course.

Sheesh! Aren't there any grown ups editing newspapers anymore who can see through these obvious fallacies?

The Turning Point?

Al-Zarqawi killed. A big new offensive against insurgents in Baghdad. Another offensive in Ramadi. Raids across Iraq based on new intelligence gathered from the site of Al-Zarqawi's death house. A full cabinet finally seated in Iraq. And now, this. Bush in Baghdad. We are at a tipping point and the MSM will find away, once again, to miss the elephant in the room.

What If They Are Wrong?

I've written elsewhere about the mainstream media's ideology-driven myopia about the economy. Simply put, the MSM is uniformly wrong about the economy, which has been booming for going on three years.

Going back through modern times, the left-wing press has, in fact, been wrong on a lot of the main issues that have confronted America. The "idealism" of the Soviet experiment.... does the name Walter Duranty ring a bell? The innocence of Alger Hiss. The nobility of Che Guevera and Fidel Castro. Kennedy's "Camelot." That withdrawal from Vietnam would not lead to a bloodbath. Global cooling. Reagan and the "Evil Empire."

What if they're wrong again about the War on Terror? The meta-narrative the MSM has committed itself to about the War is that it is a fiasco, a botch, a "quagmire," a mistake; that the Bush administration is "incompetent," did not plan for the "occupation," etc. But today's news that the American military, in a precision airstrike, has killed terrorist leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, al Zarqawi, seems to me to lend itself to a counter-history, a meta-narrative that is different from the meta-narrative the MSM favors.

What if the Bush War on Terror has, in fact, been a roaring success, but the MSM is too stupid or ideological to see it? Consider: since 9/11/01, in less than five years,

1. The American military, together with Coalition partners, deposed the Taliban, the most vicious and doctrinaire Islamist regime in the world, with relatively few casualties (the left-wing MSM predicted many, many more), and a relatively modern government has been elected in Afghanistan;

2. The American military, together with Coalition partners, deposed Saddam Hussein, the most vicious of Middle Eastern fascist dictators -- a man who had used WMDs against his own people, who had started two major wars in the previous 20 years, who supported terrorism against Israel, who subverted and corrupted the UN Oil-for-Food program, and who had pledged to develop nuclear weapons -- again with relatively few casualties (again, the MSM predicted many, many more casualties), and again have helped to elect a relatively open government.

3. Libya has given up its WMD programs.

4. American diplomacy led to the dismantling of A.Q. Khan's nuclear technology export ring in Pakistan. Pakistan, a potential powder-keg of Islamist terrorism, has been kept in the fold of relatively civilized nations.

5. Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan have moved, even if ever so slightly, toward more freedom and more democracy.

6. Most importantly, we are coming up to the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and America has not been hit with another terrorist attack.

The MSM is like a child at the zoo, who sees the mice nibbling at the straw in the corner of a cage, and comments that the cage is dirty and nasty and the zoo is a "failure," but ignores the healthy elephant standing in the center of the room. The child in this scenario is not just operating from a different perspective, the child is simply wrong.