The Libs are besides themselves trying to explain why their partisan Jihad against Bush has not culminated in exposing all Americans to heightened risk of a terrorist attack. All of this surrounds the blatant decision by the NY Times, as explained by Lichtbau on Reliable Sources, that in the minds of lefty journalists and editors the time had come to wind down the war on terror and re-assess all these ‘agressive’ anti-terrorism programs. As Lichtbau wrote in the NY Times this program was secret, was coordinated with many countries across the world who would rather not be seen as cooperating with the US on terrorism, and successful. This follows on the heels of the NSA program exposed by the NY Times last december which was focused on monitoring the communications of terrorists overseas. In the event someone in the US made contact with these overseas terrorists, the NSA passed this information to the FBI who then checked out the lead, and if the lead was a concern, went to the FIS Court to make that person the target of surveillance (where all communications could be monitored, not just the ones swept up in the overseas monitoring). Somehow the NY Times felt this program too was too much and decided to cripple it as well.

In order to rationalize the irrational, one has to go through some major logical gyrations which end up looking like a Escher drawing of physically impossible geometric relationships. Escher is a great example because an initial glance doesn’t allow the viewer to detect anything wrong. It takes a second to register the flaw and where it is. So too with the liberal alibi’s. The excuses put forth so far in this debacle are all flawed. Which illustrates at its base why the news media should not even be wrestling with the question to expose these programs.

Journalists are beyond ignorant regarding the current security threats we face, the programs in place to defend against those threats, and technology used in those programs. They create theories out of ignorant speculation to fill the gap in their knowledge and experience and attempt to claim this is all real and important. As we have seen, the only things they tend to get right are those details that can help terrorists.

The worst excuse is the laziest: the terrorists knew about the program so therefore nothing exposed increased the probability of attack. The arguments against this coordinated mantra (coming from the blindered hard left apologists for all things anti-Bush) are numerous, illustrating the desperation of the claim. Let’s explore these.

For one, the suggestion the terrorists knew is pure, unfounded speculation by the wannabe omnipotent one making the claim. Whoever makes this case is in the throws of a serious God Complex. No one knows if the terrorists had gotten lazy or, in a rush to meet a schedule, clumsy. As someone pointed out yesterday (sorry, cannot recall the link) criminals know about the hidden cameras and the wiretaps but they get nabbed by them all the time. Adding a gentle reminder during planning can make the difference in how the criminal deals with these. But while these people know in general, telling them were the cameras are and which phones are being monitored (AT&T vs. Qwest) gives them more than a general heads up.

More analogies abound. As Hugh Hewitt points out it is the difference between knowing sobriety and speed limit checks will be out and knowing where and when they will be up. I likened it to knowing Iraq was going to be invaded and knowing what the invasion plan was. In football it is like knowing the offense is going to run a play and knowing which play the offense is going to run. In medicine it is know that heart surgery can be done and knowing how to do heart surgery. The ‘how’ is much more important than the ‘what’.

The intellectually lazy media thrives on the idea that knowing ‘about’ something is sufficient for becoming an expert and a critique. Well it is not. Intelligence is like any other highly complex and technical field. It takes decades of one’s dedication to become an expert. I know a lot about Biology and Physiology (I have a BS in biology). A lot more than any journalist who is not from the medical profession. I know about heart surgery (seeing as it has extended the life of my father and many other family members). But I cannot be called an expert in the field or even pretend to be a critique of life long practitioners. The idea Keller and Lichtbau could pretend to know enough about intel and the programs they exposed to make life and death decisions for the rest of us is the epitomy of egotistical arrogance. I can abide an arrogant person if they can back it up. But in this case we are dealing with rank amatuers in the fields of counter-terrorism and daily threats.

The other bit of evidence that destroys the idea the terrorists knew so there is no harm is of course Hugh Hewitt’s great point – if the terrorists knew this would not be a successful program. This story pushed me to generate this post because of the fallacy in the logic that proves the program was not known by the terrorism, yet the person goes onto conclude that despite the evidence he himself brought up.

We have endured the painful revelations of the September 11 Commission and others about how the CIA, FBI, NSA and others had info that could have given us enough early warning to have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Given that record, the only sort of scoop that would have been shocking in June would have been a report that international bank data was not being used and that the Bush administration really wasn’t following the money of al-Qaida. That would have shocked us all – and Osama bin Laden, too. There seems to be little that evildoers could have learned from the latest report that they didn’t already know.

Notice how theargument is the only story that would be worth printing would be the failure to follow the money? But that was not the story was it? No, it was ‘how’ we follow the money. Al Qaeda may have been banking on the EU hesitancy to cooperate with the US to this level and had been keeping their transactions away from US institutions thinking our reach was limited. Now they know it is not so limited and they will take steps to go deeper and hide their actions better. The logic here is stunning still.

The other indication that the Bush administration was concerned was the fact they bent over backwards to convince the NY Times not to report on the program. They gave them unprecedented access (which will never happen again I am sure) and the NY Times even admits there was nothing nefarious they could see. The reasoning from the left is the government wants to hide their issues and tout their successes. Since the NY Times has reported this is such a success, they need to recognize the fact the Bush administration acted in opposition to their delusional motivations. Their paranoia as become so severe that the idea the program was truly important and therefore the administration was willing to sacrifice political gain that would come from its exposure never entered their warped minds. To them there is no such thing as a successful, classified program that would be kept secret.

Maybe it is from dealing with lefty idols like Bill Clinton and others who could never resist dropping some positive news regardless of the classified nature that these journos cannot fathom foregoing some fleeting fame for the national good. But that lack of vision and honor is no excuse to risk our lives either.

Why keep secret a successful program? It is obvious to anyone who is thinking about the goal and not driven by personal gain. Keller and Lichtbau are driven by personal gain and by delusions of granduer where they know more about terrorism, intelligence and the banking world than the 100’s or 1,000’s of experts that collectively work those fields to stop another 9-11. As I said before, the logical gyrations to avoid the obvious conclusions here are stunning in the depth of denial.

Lichtbau needs to explain how he knows his sources are not partisans aligned against Bush and not aiming for higher level positions in a Democrat 2008 administration. If there are 20 sources (and none of these are among the people who begged and pleaded with the NY Times to not cripple our national defenses) than there is still a cabal inside the beltway trying to initiate a political outcome in the coming elections. Anyone who risks programs and doesn’t focus on protecting this country (theoretically these sources’ jobs) to run to the press for partisan gain should go to jail for life.

Addendum:The NY Times has a piece today that is supposed to provide ‘understanding’ regarding the challenges of the poor whittle media has to deal with in deciding to uncover secret programs. But it really highlights the fact that the media’s drive to be first and break news (more profit$) tends to get people killed. Check out these examples of the media exposing secrets and killing 241 marines in Lebanon, and then the counter example where the loss to the media was a ‘scoop’.

KATHARINE GRAHAM, the publisher of The Washington Post who died in 2001, backed her editors through tense battles during the Watergate era. But in a 1986 speech, she warned that the media sometimes made “tragic” mistakes.

Her example was the disclosure, after the bombing of the American embassy in Beirut in 1983, that American intelligence was reading coded radio traffic between terrorist plotters in Syria and their overseers in Iran. The communications stopped, and five months later they struck again, destroying the Marine barracks in Beirut and killing 241 Americans.

“This kind of result, albeit unintentional, points up the necessity for full cooperation wherever possible between the media and the authorities,” Ms. Graham said.

But such cooperation can prove problematic, as her newspaper’s former editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee, has recounted.

In 1986, after holding for weeks at government request a scoop about an N.S.A. tap on a Soviet undersea communications cable, The Post learned that the Russians knew all about it already from an N.S.A. turncoat named Ronald Pelton. NBC beat The Post on its own report.

Nothing lays out their priorities better. The risk of them going ahead is our lives, and the risk to them for not going ahead is they may get scooped. The article clearly shows why the media should not be allowed to decide what classified programs to expose. It is an attempt to show how seriously they take their job. But what is shows me is how deadly their arrogant mistakes can be to others. The media now has a self documented history of getting people killed by exposing details they did not understand, or appreciate the implications surrounding these details. Their ignorance and arrogance is a deadly combination, as they have now reported in the NY Times.