Frog March This Man
Bill Keller is the executive editor of the New York Times, and in all seriousness, I believe federal agents should walk into the Times, handcuff this man (along with several key reporters) and hall him off to jail to stand trial for treason.
Am I actually serious? Yes.
One of the valid criticisms of the Bush adminstration is that they seem to want to fight a war (the big one. The one against Islamic fascist jihadists) without naming it or actually acting like were in a war. This war is real, it's serious, but the Bush administration seems to want to pretend it's not. No wonder the Democrats like to call it the "so called" war on terrorism and other such nonsense.
But part of taking the war seriously is taking treason seriously. Blowing the cover of the telephone monitoring and now the bank monitoring is just that, treason. If the Bush adminstration wants to convince us that they take the war seriously, this man needs to stand trial, public relations be damned.
posted by Harsh Pencil | 6/24/2006 12:09:00 AM
Andy McArthy at NRO writes a persuasive argument that while it would be right to prosecute the NY Times, it wouldn't be smart because given our current Supreme Court, we would lose and the Times would end up being seen as the victorious defenders of the Constitution. Instead, he proposes we go after the leakers through the NY Times. That is, they admit they know who the leakers are and the Plame case makes clear that we can get the courts to require them to give their names or go to jail for contempt. I agree that if this is feasible, this is good enough since if the press chooses to give up their sources, the leaks will dry up, and if they don't, every time they do it, some of them spend 18 months in jail. That is probably a big enough disincentive.
But Diamond Doug, am I still silly about my seriousness comment if Bush does neither of these? Can you be serious and do nothing whatsoever about something like this?
About face? I think not.
In a world with a good judiciary, they should be frogged marched. They have no right to do what they did and we have every right to criminally prosecute them and jail them for it.
But for the sake of argument assume:
1) The courts will allow the editors and reporters to be held for 18 months, not for publishing, but for not revealing their sources.
2) The courts won't allow them to be jailed for publishing, instead they will find section 798 of the criminal code (the law they broke) unconstitutional.
Would it still make sense to go for the frog march given these (assumed) facts? Remember, either way they go to jail (unless they reveal their sources, in which case the sources go to jail).
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