Bush's War on the Media.

The point we were just making in our previous post has been made more eloquently and with serious information backup by NYTimes Frank Rich (TimesSelect article):

.. unfortunately for us, terrorists are not so stupid: it’s been reported as far back as 2003 (in The Washington Post) and as recently as this month (in Ron Suskind’s must-read best seller, "The One Percent Doctrine") that our enemies long ago took Mr. Bush at his word and abandoned banks for couriers, money brokers, front companies and suitcases stuffed with cash and gold. Tom Brokaw summarized the consensus of terrorism experts last week when he told Chris Matthews of MSNBC: "I don’t know anyone who believes that the terrorist network said, ‘Oh my God, they’re tracing our financial transactions? What a surprise.’ Of course, they knew that they were doing that."

He makes the only natural conclusion that can be made of the whole fuss - nothing new under the sky:

It’s not only the White House that has a vested political interest in concocting a smoke screen by demonizing the fourth estate as a fifth column.

(.../...)

The assault on a free press during our own wartime should be recognized for what it is: another desperate ploy by officials trying to hide their own lethal mistakes in the shadows. It’s the antithesis of everything we celebrate with the blazing lights of Independence Day