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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim S who wrote (22659)	7/2/2006 12:44:06 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 541490

That is one partisan opinion, Jim. I am not willing to give any single administration unfettered and unaccountable power to make any national security decision they deem right. I don't want to live under a series of four-year dictatorships. Given the power, administrations would shut down a huge percentage of stories written about them on national security grounds. I come down with Thomas Jefferson and the NYT on this one. I am eternally grateful they don't have that power to use and abuse at their whim. I know you will disagree. The fact this program was already known in the public realm makes this move that much more vindictive under the guise of protecting us all. If a hoity-toity liberal President Hillary Clinton tries to act unilaterally and shut down oversight on security grounds, will you feel the same way, and say the Washington Times shouldn't publish what she gets up to behind closed doors?

To: Jim S who wrote (22659)	7/2/2006 1:52:26 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541490

When some hoity-toity liberal newspaper decides it knows best about issues of security, to the disadvantage of those trying to maintain security, I think that is the time to come down hard on those running that newspaper. Jim, you and I are clearly at opposite ends of the pole on this one. And I could type a lot. But two comments are enough. One, this was done for fast and dirty reasons which, under 9-11 pressures made some sense. Continuing it in that guise without proper checks and balances opens up the imperial presidency bit. Two, my guess is that you would complain bitterly the opposite way if the shoe were on the other foot--a conservative paper published a classified document from a liberal administration. I think the best evidence, not as concerns your case because I haven't seen you posting that long, was the Plame case in which the admin clearly floated classified information that harmed ongoing nuclear proliferation work at the CIA. And conservatives failed to object. In fact, most cheered.