E Pluribus Unum

So the New York Times publishes a story about a coordinated plan that would use international banking data to track its terror-funding efforts.

One U.S. official was quoted as saying: "It will bring together representatives of the intelligence, law enforcement and financial regulatory agencies to accomplish two goals: to follow the money as a trail to the terrorists, to follow their money so we can find out where they are; and to freeze the money to disrupt their actions."

That official wasn't one of those anonymous leakers -- it was Bush himself, back when he was at the top of his game and had all the world with him, on Sept. 24, 2001, just 13 days after al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon. He announced the first of a series of measures that made clear international bankers were cooperating to track al Qaeda's funding.

No matter. The press must be stopped!

Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.)

[N]o one elected the New York Times to do anything. And the New York Times is putting its own arrogant elitest left wing agenda before the interests of the American people, and I'm calling on the Attorney General to begin a criminal investigation and prosecution of the New York Times -- its reporters, the editors who worked on this, and the publisher.

I'm pretty sure that's how they sounded in Stalinist Russia.

Thomas Jefferson:

Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is freedom of the press. It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.

Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel:

Thirty-five years ago this week, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 against the Nixon administration's efforts to prevent publication of the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of the Vietnam War. Justice Potter Stewart wrote for the majority:

"In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry - in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government."

High on the job-description priority-list of an independent press is the task of keeping an eye on the government. My gosh! You'd think "conservatives" would understand this.