While doing the last post, I noticed this little banner on top of NewsMax’s page:

Interesting. First – that is breaking news? We got North Korea test firing missiles and a poll about prosecuting the New York Times is their “breaking news”? We really see the kind of “news organization” NewsMax is.

This brings me to the further attack by the right on the New York Times. Powerline did this little post earlier this week:

On April 27, 1961, President John Kennedy delivered a speech before the American Newspaper Publishers Association at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. He addressed the issue of the press’s role in preserving national security in the Cold War. President Kennedy lamented the fact that secret information about America’s covert operations had routinely appeared in American newspapers, to be read by friend and foe alike. He noted that the Communists had openly boasted of gaining information from American newspapers that they would otherwise have had to use spies to attempt to steal. And he called on newspapers not to publish stories based on the single test, Is it news? but rather to add a second test: How does it affect national security?

Leave it to the right to take something out of context in order to paint a great President like Kennedy as being like Bush. Let’s look at what Kennedy actually said:

The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.

But I do ask every publisher, every editor, and every newsman in the nation to reexamine his own standards, and to recognize the nature of our country’s peril. In time of war, the government and the press have customarily joined in an effort, based largely on self-discipline, to prevent unauthorized disclosures to the enemy. In time of “clear and present danger,” the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public’s need for national security.

And then there is this kicker:

That question is for you alone to answer. No public official should answer it for you. No governmental plan should impose its restraints against your will. But I would be failing in my duty to the Nation, in considering all of the responsibilities that we now bear and all of the means at hand to meet those responsibilities, if I did not commend this problem to your attention, and urge its thoughtful consideration

If the right wants to us Kennedy then use him properly. He simply asked the editors of newspapers to use some judgment in what they decide to print. He did so without threatening them. He acted as a President should. Making everyone feel like they have a vital stake in our democracy and trusting their judgement to act accordingly. This is a major difference between Kennedy and Bush.

We have the mouth pieces on the right going around saying the New York Times should be charged with treason or prosecuted under other laws. How does that help our nation? How does that preserve the greatness that has made America? It doesn’t.

What make this even more interesting is how the right likes to call people who oppose them all kinds of names. We have been called terrorists sympathizers and communists. Communists – hmm speaking of that, let’s look at this little piece:

News reporting about disasters and public disorder in China could become a crime under a proposed bill which would ban the spread of information about catastrophes without official permission.

Government officials say the legislation is aimed at stopping “irresponsible journalism”, but there are fears it could be used to stop any reporting that does not meet official approval.

The proposed Law on Response to Contingencies threatens fines of up to £7,000 for misleading reports and requires journalists to get government approval before divulging news of natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, riots and other unspecified “sudden events” or “contingencies”.

They sit there and call us communists, yet we see the biggest communist nation on the planet working to do the exact thing these right-wingers are pushing for. Hell if people like PowerLine, Michelle Malkin, Bill O’Reilly, etc. like suppressing the press so much then perhaps we should take up a collection and send them to a country that is more suited for them. That country is China.