Assault and battery

E.J. Dionne gets it exactly right.

But this particular anti-press campaign is not about Journalism 101. It is about Power 101. It is a sophisticated effort to demolish the idea of a press independent of political parties by way of discouraging scrutiny of conservative politicians in power. By using bad documents, Dan Rather helped Bush, not John Kerry, because Rather gave Bush's skilled lieutenants the chance to use the CBS mistake to close off an entire line of inquiry about the president. In the case of Guantanamo, the administration, for a while, cast its actions as less important than Newsweek's.

Meanwhile, Don Juan Williams does a fawning "casual" interview with Dr. Secretary Mistress Rice this morning, in which he asks what the administration is doing to deal with Muslims who feel the U.S. is "hostile" to them and their countries. Rice credits 60 years of Realpolitik and not encouraging democracy. Bafflingly, Williams fails to follow-up with the obvious: "But Ms. Sect'y, we're not talking about past hostility, we're talking about right now hostility. Do you think that maybe democracy at the point of a gun may have some unfortunate, unintended consequences?" But he does not do that. Instead he talks about the Stamford football team.

This administration and the press: Use those you can; flog those you can't.