Of Tight Lips, Bleeding Hearts and Leakage
Hopefully the Obama admin will be as tightlipped as the Bush admin was, Rove says. The lefty outrage is an indicator they’re off to a good start. LA TImes with Rove’s Loyola Marymount speech first:
Secrecy and confidentiality are necessary for every government, especially when you’re at war.
Most citizens don’t want our plans to stop an enemy attack splashed on the front pages of the newspaper. So when the New York Times took it upon itself to describe an intelligence program that used electronic means of communication and information-gathering … by which we listen in to the electronic communications of our enemy abroad — their satellite phones, their Internet messages, anything of an electronic nature. When the New York Times let it be known that we were doing this, it put America and our allies at risk.
I love how the last eight years, this White House, the Bush White House, was criticized for being tight-lipped. We didn’t leak. I hope Barack Obama has a White House that doesn’t leak, and let me tell you why.
The Oval Office is an incredibly powerful place. It is the epitome of American democracy. You cannot imagine how powerful that office is on the psyche of people.
Because [the Oval Office] is so powerful, and as a result so confining and limiting, you want people to have the ability to walk in and say, “Here’s what I believe.” And in order to get that, you’ve got to have people not worried about, “You know what? If I say something somebody’s gonna leak it to the Washington Post and make me look like an idiot tomorrow.” You don’t want people to say, “You know what, if I say that, how’s it going to look on the front page of the New York Times?”
You want people to have respect for each other and have the ability to say, “I disagree,” and you want to have the ability for the president to get that kind of advice and not worry about having anything leaked to the newspapers. You have people leaking left and right, and you’ve got people pulling their punches. And the last place that anybody needs to pull a punch is in the Oval Office.
The freedom of the press should not be allowed and should not be required [to give] such transparency to the policy process that that policy process is stifled in its operation.
If last night’s press conference is any indicator, the new openness stops at the podium.
The Bush administration of course was a champion of freedom of the press. Exhibit A: New York Times editors were neither charged with treason nor shot after drumhead trials for revealing vital national security secrets and providing aid and comfort to the enemy. Their reporters were not tossed out of the White House Press Corps or the Pentagon or denied any other normal access to the government or the United States military. It will be interesting to see whether the Obama administration is as gracious and supportive of the First Amendment. It will also be interesting to see whether, if asked by the Obama administraton to withhold a story in the interest of national security, the New York Times will maintain consistent lofty … or base, if you prefer … standards on what constitutes the public interest.
There are promising signs that may well be tested as Obama’s presidency proceeds. via Instapundit, here’s an Obama fan who is unhappy with the new lack of openness, as the Obama admin indicates in court it will maintain some Bush-era secrecy policies and practices. Ditto funk from Greenwald and Sullivan who … excuse me, do you have the time? … must be close to bailing on his latest guy about now. Where is the love? Gotta be hurtful and confusing when your heroes recognize reality and you can’t quite manage it.
Here’s a lefty of recent vintage who wishes they’d shut up, though given his refreshing admission that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, maybe he should throw that bucket down where he is. Hey, you think fairweather sailor John Cole is mulling another tack?
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:34 pm Comments (3) on Tuesday, February 10, 2009
3 Responses to “Of Tight Lips, Bleeding Hearts and Leakage”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Once again, Our Dark Lord Rove speaks truth to idiocy.
February 11th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
I’m wondering where I can get some of the drugs that Rove is on. How else to reconcile “leaked electronic eavesdropping secrets to the New York Times” with “We didn’t leak”?
February 11th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
[...] Of Tight Lips, Bleeding Hearts and Leakage [...]