Blame The Media

I find it absolutely hysterical that the Bush administration, and a Republican Senate, have decided to publicly scold the media (specifically the New York Times) for "disclosing" the existence of a classified bank transaction tracking program. This boils down to 3 quick points...

1) The government has already admitted, on numerous occasions, that they track and seize terrorist-related bank accounts and assets. In fact, there was a time when they would disclose to the media exactly how much they had seized. The amount was never overly-impressive -- usually a few hundred thousand dollars -- but nonetheless, this program was no secret. While some may think that all terrorists live in caves and eat goat meat for dinner, global terrorism is big business (if you don't believe me, read Holy War Inc by Peter Bergen). And this big business knows exactly what we're doing to fight their efforts.

2) Perhaps more importantly - if this was such a big secret, how come nobody is scolding the person or people inside the government who disclosed this information to the media? The leaker? Isn't that the biggest problem here, if they really are concerned with public knowledge of the program?

3) How come they are only nailing the NYTimes? The Wall Street Journal and NY Post also ran similar stories. Oh wait, could it be because the NYTimes is preceived to have a liberal bias, while the Post and Journal are notoriously conservative? Or would it be because the NYTimes ran Joe Wilson's scathing editorial about the Bush Admin's manipulation of intelligence?

In any event, it's all just another example of kindergarten politics practiced by the Bush Administration. Don't they have more pressing issues to worry about?