ShareThisBy JAY AMBROSE
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
There's an old joke that says if we had ham, we could have a ham-and-cheese sandwich, if we had cheese.
An article in The New Republic coughs up a new version of that joke, though no humor is intended. It says that if Democrats start investigating the White House, and if the White House wants to create a diversion, and if three or four other things happen, we could be entering a hugely repressive era for the press, one in which it will be common to see journalists "marched into jail."
The wildly speculative piece has a significance beyond itself because it duplicates the style of so many anti-Bush diatribes. First, in scouting out an issue _ in this case dangers to a free press _ it neglects some very real, truly threatening Democratic abuses, and second, its fearful conclusions rely more on remote possibilities than facts. While the writer does have evidence of waywardness in hand, there is little more to sustain his nervous Nelly worrying than figments of his imagination.
The evidence consists chiefly in remarks made this past spring by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that there are "some statutes on the books" that would make it possible for the government to prosecute journalists publishing classified information. He is right. There are. But it's never been done, and shouldn't be except in some clearly treasonous circumstance. Leaking classified information is a way of life in Washington, the stories are all over the lot on the matter of whose ox is gored and they are frequently important (though hardly always) in maintaining a free, informed, open society and keeping the government accountable.
Many took Gonzales to task for his implied threat, as they should have. If the Justice Department actually does do what it likely will not do _ go after The New York Times for a story about U.S. spying on communications between terrorists and U.S. residents _ the cries of outrage will be multiplied many times. If the case went as far as the Supreme Court, as the New Republic writer himself agrees, the justices would probably remind the Justice Department about a thing called the First Amendment.
I say all that while simultaneously believing The New York Times stepped out of bounds in a story about a secret but perfectly legal and apparently effective government program keeping track of terrorist finances. It would be impossible to prove, but that story may have endangered American lives. Suppose truly massive, obviously intended endangerment in some similar story that violated the law and achieved no public good seemed provable beyond a reasonable doubt _ would it then be out of line for prosecutors to act?
In my judgment, they would be many times more justified than were Nancy Pelosi and some 80 other House Democrats in seeking to censor a TV documentary during the last days of the 2004 presidential election campaign. Democrats called for the Federal Communications Commission to intervene if Sinclair Broadcasting persisted in its intentions to have its stations air this film showing Vietnam veterans critical of a youthful John Kerry who had accused U.S. troops of being war criminals. Sinclair was sufficiently intimidated by this and other attacks that it vastly curtailed its original plans.
Now that Pelosi is on her way to being the new speaker of the House, why doesn't our creative New Republic writer _ his name is Jeffrey Rosen _ conjure up scenarios in which she bullies the FCC into supporting other efforts to quell non-Democratic voices on TV, or joins successfully with those Democratic members who want a law requiring radio stations to put as many liberals on the air as conservatives? If enacted, this "fairness doctrine" proposal would probably be the death knell of talk radio as we have known it, and the government-enforced end of conservative commentary by such personalities as Rush Limbaugh.
Rather than even mention these threats to press freedom, Rosen sticks with threats he sees emanating from the Bush administration and dreams up improbable situations that keep getting worse and worse with no relief in sight. Not what you'd call balanced analysis, but not atypical of attacks on Bush, either.
(Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay(at)aol.com.)
