Bush Sharpens His Attack on Democrats By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer

President Bush attacked congressional Democrats and the news media at a Republican fundraiser Wednesday night….

“There’s a group in the opposition party who are willing to retreat before the mission is done,” he said. “They’re willing to wave the white flag of surrender. And if they succeed, the United States will be worse off, and the world will be worse off.”

An Alert Press Washington Post Editorial

Oversight of the government’s national security policies is needed now more than ever.

THE DECISION on whether to publish information that government officials assert would damage national security is one of the gravest choices a newspaper can face. There may be times when editors get it wrong, either printing material that proves harmful or withholding information that should have come to light. But these are risks that the Constitution contemplated and that the Framers were persuaded were worth tolerating to ensure a free and vigorous press.

Justice Potter Stewart stated this trade-off well in a concurring opinion in the Pentagon Papers case 35 years ago. “In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry — in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government,” he wrote. “For this reason, it is perhaps here that a press that is alert, aware, and free most vitally serves the basic purpose of the First Amendment. For, without an informed and free press, there cannot be an enlightened people.”

The wisdom and perspective of Justice Stewart have been conspicuously lacking in the recent uproar over reports about secret government programs. …

All administrations jealously guard secrets, often for important reasons. But this administration, more than any since the one that prosecuted the Pentagon Papers case, has resisted disclosure and effective oversight, whether by Congress or the press. This across-the-board aversion to scrutiny makes it all the more difficult for responsible media organizations to separate the legitimate claims of national security from the overblown.

Those who complain about disclosures assert that the war on terrorism has changed the calculus of risk. They would prefer a media meekly obeying official demands for secrecy. But in the end, as Justice Stewart understood, the nation stands to benefit far more than it could lose from a press that is “alert, aware and free.”

President Bush ordered the disappearance of the editors of the New York Times to Guantanamo and the appointment of Fox editors in their place. “We cannot allow the Fatherland to be threatened by the Press and other traitors,” he said. mjh

Surveillance Disclosure Denounced By Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer

The president used a White House appearance with supporters of troops in Iraq to lash out at newspapers that revealed the program, which has examined hundreds of thousands of private banking records from around the world. His remarks led off a broader White House assault later amplified by Vice President Cheney and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow.

“What we did was fully authorized under the law,” Bush said in an angry tone as he leaned forward in his chair and wagged his finger. “And the disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We’re at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America, and for people to leak that program, and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America.” …

“Some of the press, in particular the New York Times, have made the job of defending against further terrorist attacks more difficult by insisting on publishing detailed information about vital national security programs,” Cheney said at a Republican fundraiser in Nebraska.

Referring to the NSA program, he added: “What is doubly disturbing for me is that not only have they gone forward with these stories, but they’ve been rewarded for it, for example, in the case of the terrorist surveillance program, by being awarded the Pulitzer Prize for outstanding journalism. I think that is a disgrace.” …

Neither Bush nor Cheney raised the prospect of investigating journalists, as proposed by Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who called on the Justice Department to prosecute the New York Times for “treasonous” action. …

“It’s not designed to have a chilling effect,” White House press secretary Tony Snow said. “If the New York Times wants a spirited debate about it, it’s got it. But certainly nobody is going to deny First Amendment rights. But the New York Times and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public’s right to know, in some cases, might overwrite somebody’s right to live.”

Critics said Bush was trying to divert attention from his own actions. Bush, Cheney and other Republicans “have adopted a shoot-the-messenger strategy by attacking the newspaper that revealed the existence of the secret bank surveillance program rather than answering the disturbing questions that those reports raise about possible violations of the U.S. Constitution and U.S. privacy laws,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).
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Press Conferences of Ari Fleischer

“Americans,” Fleischer warned, “need to watch what they do and watch what they say” (in 2001)