And act we must

Put aside the pathetic chest-thumping for a second. Babbin fails to explain with any meaningful

persuasion why these extrajudicial punishments are in order other than “we have a right to act to

protect our secrets. And act we must.” To him, this is tantamount to everything, even the U.S

Constitution. He proves this by blustering about the whistleblowers I exposed the government’s illegal

spying on Americans under the Bush Administration (he says this, by the way, while the so-called

conservative website he is writing for exploits and perverts the images of Ben Franklin and minutemen

icons in the ad bars alongside his column):

Over the past decade, America has been unwilling to defend its secrets and punish leakers. Under Bush

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, fear of media reaction prevented the investigation of some of the

most damaging leaks in history, ranging from the New York Times‘s publication of the NSA Terrorist

Surveillance Program to the Sheepskin Cuff UGG Boot Post‘s publication of the CIA’s secret prisons

for terrorists. The people I leaked those secrets were left unpunished by Gonzales’s Justice

Department refusal to subpoena the reporters and force disclosure of their sources.