Disgrace and irresponsibility

Last Friday, The New York Times led the way in publishing information about a secret government program “to investigate and track terrorists that relies on a vast international database that includes Americans’ banking transactions.”

On Monday, in Washington, President Bush said the disclosure was “disgraceful.”

Saying such a thing is, of course, irresponsible. It is not a heinous irresponsibility, though Mr. Bush has proven himself capable of that level of irresponsibility (“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”) There never was a president who didn’t seek to politicize the media, when it suited that president’s agenda and political needs. Labeling the press as irresponsible is a way of life in the government-media relationship. It’s the same as saying to the cop who is giving you the speeding ticket, “Don’t you have criminals to chase?”

It doesn’t hurt, though, to point out this mild presidential irresponsibility, when it happens. Like a bad writer with a metaphor, President Bush will beat a media disgrace to death, with a certain constituency latching on to the irrelevance like bulldogs, as Ann Coulter’s rise this week to the top of the best-seller list proves.

Presidents when they say these sorts of things are being irresponsible to the basic fabric of the republic. Thomas Jefferson, a president of the United States, had disagreeable things to say about the media, but he also understood the reality.

“The basis of our government being the opinion of the people,” he wrote, in 1787, “the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Interesting that Jefferson wrote this in January, 1787, several months before the convening of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. It illuminates a basic truth about freedom of the press in America, that would become spelled out so clearly in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Abbreviated to the business at hand, the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press.” The key word in the amendment is “abridging,” which means “to reduce in scope; to shorten in duration or extent.”

Its presence in the First Amendment meant the founding fathers must have understood that freedom of the press already existed in America. Freedom of the press predated the Constitution, which simply confirmed its eminence as a cornerstone in a free society.

That is awesome power, and yes, the power has been abused, and the abuses have been met with correction, both in the courts and in the court of public opinion. The basic power remains unchanged, and as eminent a cornerstone of American society as was confirmed in 1787 and 1789.

The failure of a president of the United States to acknowledge that power, and its role in the society and its governance, is irresponsible. Mundanely so, perhaps, but always worth noting. Mr. Bush, particularly, would serve himself well to embrace that reality, instead of looking for paths around it. There are no paths around the role of the American press. If he understood that, he would know that a program the size of tracking international financial transactions would not remain a secret for long, and he could plan accordingly, on the basis of our government being an opinion of the people.