Not surprisingly, James Lileks has a great take on the Times disclosing details about the CIA's terrorist-transporting airline:

I admit I am confused about the reasons for running the story; it would seem an odd thing to reveal in wartime, unless of course you didn’t believe this was wartime. Stories like this come not from the Vietnam template but the 80s template, which is much more vivid to the mind of a modern reporter. This is the sort of story you’d do when you discovered new American perfidy in Central America, a detail from a dirty distant war whose purpose and rationale was held in contempt by all - at least the right-thinking people you had drinks with after work. (I speak as someone who did four years duty in DC happy hours, thank you. It's not so much that all DC journalists are rabid Democrats - it's that they're addicted to cynicism and bemusedly contemptous of anyone who isn't in the press. Except for thier sources, of course. And their spouses who have government jobs. Everyone else is an object of pity or contempt. You think DC journalists are doctrinaire liberals? Get them talking about DC city government, and stand back lest ye be singed.) No, the CIA airllne story plugs into the general idea that the role of the press is to reveal government secrets, regardless of their nature. That the Republic is served not by men and women in offices figuring out crafty ways to confound headchoppers, but by men in parking garages who tell reporters that funds earmarked for vending machine repair are actually going to airlift terrorists out of foreign capitals without proper extradition documents. Boy! Stop the presses!

Would you have trusted these reporters to keep quiet about the fake build-up of troops that made it appear the Allies would invade Calais instead of Normandy? You can imagine a reporter pitching that story to a Perry White c. 1944 – boss, it’s a cover-up, a huge deception. Public money is at stake as well, and the people have a right to know how the war’s being conducted.

GEDDOUDDA HEAH! the editor would shout. AND I NEVER WANNA SEE YOUR JERRY-LOVIN’ ASS IN MY PAPER AGAIN!

Like I keep saying, it’s not their war. It's a war, to be observed dispassionately. And many don’t believe it’s a war at all. I can’t tell you how many emails I get accusing me of mad foamy paranoia for thinking that Iran and / or North Korea would want to slip a teeny nuke to some Islamicist cell so they could drive it up Broadway.

Well, if it occurs to me, who loves this country, I imagine it occurs to those who hate it.

That line says it all: "it’s not their war. It's a war, to be observed dispassionately".

And that's the whole problem, isn't it? I can understand about being cynical about the reasons behind a war when the man you didn't vote for is in office. Been there, done that, got the VRWC T-shirt. But I also wanted to see our country win, and as many of our troops return safely as humanly possible, no matter what the battle. And that's a far cry from today's media. I've posted this story about Pinch Sulzberger a few times, but it really sums the modern media up--or at least the mindset of The New York Times:

One day, the elder Sulzberger asked his son what Pinch calls, "the dumbest question I've ever heard in my life." If an American soldier runs into a North Vietnamese soldier, which would you like to see get shot? Young Arthur answered, "I would want to see the American get shot. It's the other guy's country."

Or, this infamous exchange from the PBS roundtable discussion Ethics in America from 1989, which was moderated by Harvard professor Charles Ogletree Jr.:

For the March 7 installment on battlefield ethics Ogletree set up a theoretical war between the North Kosanese and the U.S.-supported South Kosanese. At first Jennings responded: "If I was with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans."

Wallace countered that other reporters, including himself, "would regard it simply as another story that they are there to cover." Jennings' position bewildered Wallace: "I'm a little bit of a loss to understand why, because you are an American, you would not have covered that story."

"Don't you have a higher duty as an American citizen to do all you can to save the lives of soldiers rather than this journalistic ethic of reporting fact?" Ogletree asked. Without hesitating Wallace responded: "No, you don't have higher duty... you're a reporter." This convinces Jennings, who concedes, "I think he's right too, I chickened out."

"You don't have a higher duty--you're a reporter."

Wow.

These days, they may still think they're neutral, but fewer and fewer of their readers still do.