Power Line is, as usual, absolutely right with respect to the latest Times article on the Bush administration tracking money transfers: "It is unfortunately past time for the Bush administration to enforce the laws of the United States against the New York Times. The Times and its likeminded media colleagues will undoubtedly continue to undermine and betray the national security of the United States until they are taught that they are subject to the same laws that govern the conduct of ordinary citizens, or until an enraged citizenry decides, like Bill Keller, to take the law into its own hands and express its disagreement some other way."
Unfortunately they don't go far enough. After all, by definition "terrorism" is a war on public opinion. That means the media are the front line troops in this war. If they would simply stop giving any publicity to terrorist successes they would undermine the whole basis of terrorist tactics. If no one knows of kidnapings, murders, IED's, suicide bombers, they can't be terrorized by them. By the same token, if the media publicized our successes, it would terrorize the terrorists. For example, everyday troops come home from Iraq alive and well. Why shouldn't the lead on the evening news and the top news spot in the papers be a report of this good news.
To clinch my argument, I only observe that Saddam Hussein never allowed the media to report any bad news--just remember his Information Minister in Baghdad. We should do the same.
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