Bring'em on

Christopher Hitchens, incensed (when is he not?) by what he calls demagoguery on the right and hypocrisy on the left, can't understand the Beltway's obsession with "independent counsels" to investigate so-called press improprieties. And he's perplexed as I am by this Valerie Plane nonsense. As usual I dig his elegant weighing of antitheses:

There is no neat fit between press freedom and any "right" view of the war. In Abraham Lincoln's time, newspapers printed disclosures that they hoped would aid the Confederacy. In World War II, the Roosevelt-hating Chicago Tribune gave away the crucial fact that the United States had managed to decode the cable traffic of imperial Japan. Yet the First Amendment survived. The Bush people will make a huge mistake if they continue with their campaign against the news media. But the New York Times in particular should admit that, by endorsing the costly and futile intrusions of Patrick Fitzgerald, it helped to fashion a whip for its own back.

As for the Perils of Valerie and Joseph, the known facts are so confusing that for any one of us to do more than speculate would be foolish. All we do know is Joseph Wilson has given conflicting information.