The uproar continues over the New York Times and L.A. Times revealing the existence of a secret government program used to monitor the financial transactions of suspected terrorists. As usual, both Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin are on top of this huge story like no one else – and it’s a good thing, since you can tell that our friends on the liberal/progressive Left know that the NTY and LAT have done wrong, as neither they, the Democrats, the AP, al-Reuters, and/or the other major newspapers and major networks seem to have the stomach to pursue this story further.

(Constrast this muted response with the widespread outrage and condemnations proclaimed by nearly every liberal major media news outlet, Democrat Party leader, and even some senior Republicans following a similar outing of the NSA eavesdropping and data mining program targeting phone conversations between suspected terrorists in the U.S. and abroad back in January.)

The President today called the release of this info “a disgrace”, Republicans are calling for an investigation into the leaks, and the editors of National Review have (rightly so, in my mind) called for the revocation of White House press credentials for the offending newspapers. Hyscience is quick to observe that the Rosenbergs were executed for less. That might be going a little far, but not too, as far as I’m concerned.

National Review’s Andrew McCarthy believes the real issue here is the arrogance of dino-print-media editors who have somehow concocted the idea that the public’s right to know is more important than the lives of our fighting men and women risking their lives on a number of fronts in the Global War on Terror.

In my mind, what’s really happening is that, like the majority of those on the liberal/progressive Left, these newspaper editors are simply lost in a late ’60s/early ’70s post-Summer of Love, Vietnam War-era time warp, pining for those days when a powerful print media could take down an arrogant Republican president and lead the way towards the abandonment of an unpopular war overseas. Thirty years later, these same news organizations – who still can’t get over the fact that Bush won Florida in 2000, and are blinded by their hatred of the Bush administration as a result – are trying to relive once more their “glory days”, pathetically unaware or unconcerned that the world has changed radically since then.

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. In it’s own mind, the liberal/progressive Left has all the ingredients they need to relive those golden days of yesteryear: an unpopular President seemingly obsessed and mired in an unpopular war overseas, and an unpopular Congress (with a Republican majority, no less) blocking the way to reform on every issue near and dear to their agenda. Unfortunately, what this mindset seems unable (or unwilling) to take into account is the fact that our enemy in the GWOT is not only familiar with, but quite adept at, using every sophisticated tool of the modern information age to do what it can to defeat the U.S. (and therefore, the modern West) in Iraq and Israel in the Middle East, to impose the teachings and observances of radical Islamic fundamentalism wherever and whenever it can. The sad truth is that the arrogant, misguided, and willfully reckless leadership at the NYT and LAT knew exactly what they were doing when they chose to publicize this secret program. And they knew why they were doing it.

It had nothing to do with the public’s right to know. It had nothing to do with concerns about governmental intrusion on personal rights and freedoms. It had everything to do with their blind and relentless hatred of George W. Bush and his administration. And for that, they have put in greater danger the lives of our brave men and women who have willingly volunteered to serve their country on the front lines of the Global War on Terror in the harshest and most dangerous conditions and circumstances imaginable.

But don’t tell that to the arrogant, elitist traitors at the NYT and LAT as they sip their vintage chardonnays in trendy restaurants and fern bars, and congratulate each other from their fancy offices securely segregated away from the poor unwashed masses whose interests they self-indulgently proclaim to serve. They should be ashamed of themselves, for, as a result of their excessive reporting, they have put their country and its interests at greater risk, and more innocent blood – American and otherwise – will undoubtedly be shed. And for that one can only hope that condemnation, charges, trials, and jail time will result. No one has done more to deserve it.