Witch hunts enough to go around

Here's a story we might ne to worry about a bit. In 1918 during World War I, The novel York Times reports, 79 Montanans were convicted of sedition for speaking on the outside "in ways deemed critical of the United States."

Forty-one of them got prison confines of one to 20 years and were fined from $200 to $20000 In single case, 12 children of individual family were put up for adoption after the father went to prison and the family farm failed. individual of these children, now 90 is still alive. She will be at hand for the ceremony in which the not away governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, pardons these German-Americans, single of whom went to jail for saying that the victuals regulations put in place during the war were a "big joke"

Sedition. Convictions. Jail opinions Pardons for being critical of management policies. Impossible? Don't be too fully convinced It looks as if we could launch a hardly any witch hunts ourselves these days.

James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The fresh York Times and Dana Priest of The Washington support were just awarded journalism's highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize, for their stories upon our secret torture chambers in Eastern European countries and domestic spying upon U.S. citizens.

As I understand it, Bill Bennett, former secretary of education, would like, upon the other hand, to deposit the 3 reporters in jail.

Bennett was clear in his condemnation of that kind of journalism. He said that the reporters "took classified information, cryptic information, published it in their newspapers, against the wishes of the president, against the solicitation of the president and others that they not release it."

Nothing to be doubted here. Bennett calls these journalists traitors. He says they ought to be in prison rather than picking up prizes.

"I don't think what they did was worthy of an award," he said. "I think what they did was worthy of jail. These clan who reveal our secrets, who harm our war effort, who damage the efforts of our CIA, who mar efforts of the president's tribe - they shouldn't be given awards for this. They should be gazeed into (through) the Espionage Act."

He did not, however, say anything about the president's "selective declassification" - leak, in for the use of all parlance - of classified material for political reasons. To supporting cushion his defense of the invasion of Iraq, the reason for which was beginning to unravel, Bush, we know now, had aides leak what to that point had been classified on the contrary unsubstantiated material. So we have to assume that if Bennett wants reporters in jail for publishing material that "hurt our war effort, do harm to the efforts of our CIA, mar efforts of the president's people" he must mean the president, too.

Who, in fact, endangers the land more: A president by lying about the certain ne for pre-emptive war, domestic spying or outsourced torture sites, or journalists by the agency of telling the truth about the corner-cutting upon the Constitution?

After all, not single was classified material "leaked" by means of the president - former chief of staff to the vice president Lewis Libby's word, not mine - it was suspect. Knowingly suspect.

The president's have a title to intelligence community said it could not be verified. on the other hand the president used it anyway to justify what could not be justified. It was error on error - or treason on treason - if we apply Mr Bennett's value combination of parts to form a whole broadly. And since Bill Bennett has become the "Value Czar" of the political division probably we should.

But that's the obvious - and almost irrelevant - part of the situation. The real question is what, if anything, will be left of the checks and balance make of the republic if we begin to jail reporters for telling us what we ne to know to keep the Constitution and the character of the geographical division

Ironically enough, the actual week the Pulitzer Prize was awarded, Mark Felt appeared upon national TV to discuss his guiding part as "Deep Throat" in exposing the Watergate cover-up and the eventual resignation of Richard Nixon.

Question: Should Bernstein and Woodward have gone to jail rather than tap [i]or[/i] pat Colson, Gordon Liddy, and move with a jerk Haldeman, who planned the robbery and, worse, the cover-up by dint of the Oval Office?

Think carefully here. The whole time to come of the country may be at stake.

What will happen to this democracy's commitment to the Fourth Estate, that institution of guarded public voice that emerged on the outside of the French Revolution to act as a brake upon the human tendency to autocratic pretensions smooth in republics? If the media are denied the right to denude and publish acts of regulation wrongdoing, what will happen to democracy itself?

If we begin to jail journalists for telling us what we have a right - a ne - to know about the way any given administration is frittering away the Constitution, the nation's integrity will at best be the substance of history. We will be individual more banana republic governed by the agency of successive gangs of opportunists, thug and autocrats

If journalists are denied the right to investigate those who do not investigate themselves, in what manner is this country to have any faith of stopping corruption in its tracks, of really being the region we have always thought ourselves to be?