Freedoms of Speech and the Press - a comparison

It seems like to the media, there are some freedoms more equal than others. The first amendment gives freedom of speech to individuals and freedom to the press. Everybody realizes that freedom of speech has some limitations. I can't claim freedom of speech to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater. I can't claim freedom of speech to offer a police officer a bribe. Liberals even want to abridge freedom of speech even further by calling for laws against "hate speech", not wanting conservatives asked to make a speech at a university, or calling for the burning of Ann Coulter books.

When it comes to the press, there seems to be no limitation that is considered legitimate. They have no problem with the New York Times and the LA Times revealing national security secrets. Such revelations could cost lives. The media also wants to protect their sources with a higher level of concern over the protection of lives. Andrew McCarthy has an exellent article in the National Review Online entitled They're Just More Important Than You Are that addresses this protection of sources. He says:

Because, Keller haughtily pronounced, American methods of monitoring enemy money transfers are “a matter of public interest.”

Really? The Times prattles on about what it claims is a dearth of checks and balances, but what are the checks and balances on Bill Keller? Can it be that our security hinges on whether the editor of an antiwar, for-profit journal thinks some defense measure might be interesting?

Well, here’s something truly interesting: There are people in the U.S. intelligence community who are revealing the nation’s most precious secrets.

The media aspire to be the public’s watchdog? Ever on the prowl to promote good government? Okay, here we have public officials endangering American lives. Public officials whose violation of a solemn oath to protect national defense information is both a profound offense against honor and a serious crime.

What about the public interest in that? What about the public interest in rooting out those who betray their country in wartime?

Not on your life.

A very powerful denouncement of hypocrisy of the highest order. Yet liberalism seems to think they transcend such petty constraints as consistency. They travel of highways and byways of the shades of gray, nuancing every decision, position and action. If it seems inconsistent, simply get put a squirt of black and a squirt of white on the palette, mix it up and start painting. I would rather live in a world where yes means yes and no means no.