Ouch.

Not that I particularly enjoy linking Michelle Malkin, but this is really nasty.

In short: the NY Times revealed a secret program that monitored bank transactions to track terrorists. The program was not being abused, nor was it illegal. The editor admits this much. Now, the program is no longer useful for monitoring terrorists...since they know about it.

I'm all about whistleblowers when the government is breaking the law. I dont want to see our civil liberties removed in the name of finding terrorists. I don't want to hear about secret prisons, or having people thrown in jail indefinitely. I don't want our government to officially sanction torture and throw out the Geneva Conventions.

But there a line that distinguishes between noble and courageous journalism, and politically-motivated pestering. At some point, no matter whether you support Bush or hate him, Americans need to recognize that we are fighting some sort of a war here. It was bullshit that the NY Times was so eager to throw something anti-Bush out there that they recklessly exposed this secret. I mean, Bush messes up enough as it is; its not like there is a shortage of things to call him out on. So why go with something that was clearly borderline at the time, and in retrospect was outright wrong?

It was partisanship that drove someone in the Bush administation to oust Valerie Plame as a spy, which weakened America's intelligence gathering capabilities. It was also partisanship that motivated the NY Times to jump the gun in this instance. It seems that political victory is most important to some...perhaps for many. Whether we actually stop the extremists must be of lesser importance.