Mr. "Right to Know" Is Not "in the Know"

In an article over at the American Chronicle ( link), Daniel Ellsberg, of the stolen Pentagon Papers fame, appears to have failed to read Bush administration conspiratorial talking point memo number 42. Ellsburg says:

... it did not lead to the down-fall of Cheney and Rove directly, although theywere undoubtedly involved, but it did lead to conviction of Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby: who I feel very certain will eventually be fully pardoned by the President.

Doesn't Daniel know that the President would not dare pardon Libby because Libby will then rat on everyone in the world before congressional committees? Everyone else knows this. What is Daniel's problem? Daniel, go here to catch up, buddy.

But, speaking of the Pentagon Papers ... I have to relay some of my favorite passages in Supreme Court opinion writing: Chief Justice Burger in New York Times v. U.S.

The newspapers make a derivative claim under the First Amendment; they denominate this right as the public "right to know"; by implication, the Times asserts a sole trusteeship of that right by virtue of its journalistic "scoop." The right is asserted as an absolute. Of course, the First Amendment right itself is not an absolute, as Justice Holmes so long ago pointed out in his aphorism concerning the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theater if there was no fire ... Conceivably such exceptions may be lurking in these cases and would have been flushed had they been properly considered in the trial courts, free from unwarranted deadlines and frenetic pressures. An issue of this importance should be tried and heard in a judicial atmosphere conducive to thoughtful, reflective deliberation, especially when haste, in terms of hours, is unwarranted in light of the long period the Times, by its own choice, deferred publication.

It is not disputed that the Times has had unauthorized possession of the documents for three to four months, during which it has had its expert analysts studying them, presumably digesting them and preparing the material for publication. During all of this time, the Times, presumably in its capacity as trustee of the public's "right to know," has held up publication for purposes it considered proper and thus public knowledge was delayed. No doubt this was for a good reason; the analysis of 7,000 pages of complex material drawn from a vastly greater volume of material would inevitably take time and the writing of good news stories takes time. But why should the United States Government, from whom this information was illegally acquired by someone, along with all the counsel, trial judges, and appellate judges be placed under needless pressure? After these months of deferral, the alleged "right to know" has somehow and suddenly become a right that must be vindicated instanter.