Your point about how easy it probably was to do this story is more relavant than can be imagined. It seems to point an arrogance and laziness on the part of many members of the MSM.

Also, since 9/11 (as someone else noted) the NSA and SWIFT programs (or something similar) would almost certainly be implemented to track down the terrorists. I have worked for German companies and have talked to my colleagues in Germany occasionally. NSA is possibly aware of me but because my conversations did not have any useful information, they could careless about me. I am not concerned about the authorities visiting to discuss these conversations – there is nothing to hide. I am more concerned that two useful anti-terrorist programs have probably been crippled because of the arrogance of the MSM than a very theoretical impingement of my rights and freedom.

Give each enough bait to keep them interested and chasing into blind alleys. Much like the catnip mice we Dovetonsils give to the cats in our house, which they promptly knock under the radiators, causing them to spend countless hours trying to figure out how to get them out.

As long as the press (and our cats) don’t grow opposable thumbs, they should be kept busy for hours, while the real work is getting done.

Now tell me that the Belgian Government did not already know about the SWIFT investigation before media disclosures. Clearly, they were forced into taking this step by the media publicity and consequent pressure from anti-American forces within their nation.

This program had already led to the capture of at least one terrorist leader. Thanks to the NYT, this program is, or very soon will be, dead. No, Bush didn’t overstate anything, if anything he’s still not calling it by its true name. Treason. “or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort”
Ironically, a NYT editorial, soon after 9/11, called for exactly the kind of program the SWIFT investigation was.

“Why, once Jake went out to cover a revolution in one of the Balkan capitals. He overslept in his carriage, woke up at the wrong station, didn’t know any different, got out, went straight to a hotel, and cabled off a thousand-word story about barricades in the streets, flaming churches, machine guns … Well they were pretty surprised at his office, getting a story like that from the wrong country, but they trusted Jakes and splashed it in six national newspapers. That day every special in Europe got orders to rush to the new revolution. They arrived in shoals. Everything seemed quiet enough, but it was as much as their jobs worth to say so, with Jakes filing a thousand words of blood and thunder a day. So they chimed in too. Government stocks dropped, financial panic, state of emergency declared, army mobilized, famine, mutiny — and in less than a week there an honest to God revolution under way, just as Jakes had said. There’s the power of the press for you.”

“They gave Jake the Nobel Peace Prize for his harrowing descriptions of the carnage …” – Evelyn Waugh, 1938.

Be that as it may, the Administration has another reason to flog this; leaks from within our own intelligence community are helping the jihadis.

What I want to know is, when are leakers going to start going to jail?

That’s legwork even if it doesn’t involve, well, legs.

By the way, much of what Woodward and Bernstein reported was not second sourced. They did what most reporters will tell you is forbidden by the Golden Rules of reporting. They don’t want history to remember that either. They just want you to remember two super reporters just doing their job.

A very valid point. However, I never said that this was beneficial (except to the NYT’s bottom line) and I certianly never said that their actions were in any way protecting me.

I said only that I felt the administration was spinning this for maximum effect, at the expense of honesty.

However, as I said, you bring up a very valid point.