WaPo offers a bemused Style profile of Sen. Brownback --its bemusement as usual revealing far more about WaPo staffers than about the alleged subject of the profile. Then again, it's always about WaPo. Our stories: so groundbreaking! Our opinions: so noble! Our sense of humor: so droll we slay ourselves! Have we mentioned yet today that we broke Watergate? They hint there's something un-Christian about presidential ambition.
But the A-section shows where power really lies. Behold the Leader of the Free World grovelling before our ink-stained masters, pleading that they not reveal our war plans to the enemy.
The Post has not published the names of the East European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials, including a direct appeal from President Bush. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.
They comply about as well as Iran. Hey, what's it to us how long this struggle is prolonged by our careless revelation of covert tactics? Why should we feel any responsibility for the lives of soldiers and allies fighting a war our editorial page called for? The world will little note nor long remember whether the peoples of the Middle East ever breathed free. But it will not forget our Pulitzer Prizes, because we won't let 'em.
Remember when Geraldo was rebuked for revealing troop positions? Now we've got a battallion of Geraldos and no one gets rebuked. If we are going to have our foreign policy run not by the President but by the media, shouldn't News Editor at least be an elected position?
