So both motorcycles are down this week – one needs a battery (will fix it today) and one needs new tires (on order), so I commuted to work in the car yesterday.

My current project is in Hollywood, about 30 miles from home, and there is, flatly, no good way to get there by car. So on the way home last night, I was highly interested in the traffic news, which took me to AM radio in search of traffic information and left me gobsmacked by my first exposure to major talk radio.

I haven’t sat and listened to Rush Limbaugh, or even Hugh Hewitt (who seems like a nice guy in person) before. And what I caught was the opening of the Michael Savage Show.

What a f**king poltroon. Every time I get irritated at something stupid a blogger says, I now have to remind myself that “at least Blogger X is smarter and saner than Michael Savage.”He made four points while I was listening:

1. He’s really smart and successful (and, I presume, good in bed).

2. Condi Rice is the worst Secretary of State in the modern era, and we should have brought in an Arabic-speaking male Middle East expert instead.

3. We should have launched a conventional strike on all the North Korean missile facilities before they launched this week. (Actually, his comment was “Why do we have all these great aircraft carriers if we’re not going to use them…”)

4. He’s got some minor health issues caused by the stress of his show, and he thought about quitting, but once he thought about the F-18 pilots on the carrier he just visited, he realized that they sacrifice, and so he has to sacrifice as well.

Here are my quick comments:

1. No, he’s not (smart). I can’t speak to his success, but he’s not as successful as Paris Hilton…and as to his prowess in bed, his tone reminded me of nothing so much as this.

2. I’ll skip over the notion that all the Arabic-speaking diplomats are typically Arabists – and thus have the pro-Arab biases typical of the class – and I’ll point out that Rice has actually done a brilliant job of dealing with reassembling the Western Alliance. And that as a conservative who is opposed to Islamism, he ought to be thrilled at the frisson of discomfort the Arab males must face when they sit across from a black woman who has the power to give or deny what they want.

3. He’s out of his fucking mind. We’d have handed the Chinese a huge diplomatic victory, accomplished very little – given the state of the Nork missile program, put Seoul at risk, and handed the Arab countries a great talking point on how unilateral and trigger-happy we are.

Wimps pick fights. Strong, smart people choose them. There’s no reason to go military with North Korea today, except to relieve the humanitarian crisis that the Gulag Nation represents. It will collapse sooner or later – and our goal should be to see that it collapses sooner.

And I love the “we own them, why not use them?” We own a bunch of ICBM’s too…and I don’t see why that wouldn’t apply as well, if your brain is as small as his is.

4. This is perfectly in keeping with the rampant ego we see in #1 – of course he’s sacrificing as much as the troops by collecting his half a million while fighting the brutal case of hemorrhoids or shingles or whatever brutal stress-induced disease he’s battling. I can’t imagine a more arrogant, thoughtless, brainless position to take. That’s like me saying that the cut in pay I took to work with Spirit of America was the moral equivalent of serving in Iraq. Hint: no it wasn’t and no, his suffering isn’t either.

Writing this, I just recalled who it is that he really reminded me of:

It’s a useful image to keep in mind for dealing with arrogant fools.

Sorry for the silence; it’s been a long road trip and we’re home to massive housework and work-type work.

Into Northern California, where I got to live a dream and officiate at a wedding. Why a dream, you ask?

Because when I was standing in front of the bride and groom and their assembled family and friends, the first word out of my mouth was “Maawwiage…”

A great time was had by all (lots more later), and then off to Sacramento and a visit with some more dear friends up there. Lots of political chat, mixed with awful puns, rafting, massive eating and somehow I got roped into gardening. Digging holes, anyway.

…somehow very reminiscent of blogging, I’m not sure why. Watch this space, we’ll have more soon.

Today, the editors of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times jointly published a statement on their publication on and exposure of the SWIFT monitoring program.

It’s available both on the NY Times’ and LA Times’ sites. Go read it, and come back when you’re done.

The statement makes three basic points, I think.

First, as editors they think really hard about publishing classified information, and they give the government the opportunity to talk them out of it.

Then, we listen. No article on a classified program gets published until the responsible officials have been given a fair opportunity to comment. And if they want to argue that publication represents a danger to national security, we put things on hold and give them a respectful hearing. Often, we agree to participate in off-the-record conversations with officials so they can make their case without fear of spilling more secrets onto our front pages.

Finally, we weigh the merits of publishing against the risks of publishing. There is no magic formula, no neat metric for either the public’s interest or the dangers of publishing sensitive information. We make our best judgment.

Second, that they have a stake in the fight against terrorism as well, because they live in the cities attacked, because their reporters are at risk in the war zones, and because the freedom the terrorists want to destroy is what offers them (the free press) room to operate.

Make no mistake, journalists have a large and personal stake in the country’s security. We live and work in cities that have been tragically marked as terrorist targets. Reporters and photographers from both of our papers braved the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center to convey the horror to the world. We have correspondents today alongside troops on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. Others risk their lives in a quest to understand the terrorist threat; Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal was murdered on such a mission. We, and the people who work for us, are not neutral in the struggle against terrorism.

But the virulent hatred espoused by terrorists, judging by their literature, is directed not just against our people and our buildings. It is also aimed at our values, at our freedoms and at our faith in the self-government of an informed electorate. If freedom of the press makes some Americans uneasy, it is anathema to the ideologists of terror.

Third, they point out that the government always wants to keep secrets, and that they are the bulwark against the government abusing those powers.

Thirty-five years ago Friday, in the Supreme Court ruling that stopped the government from suppressing the secret Vietnam War history called the Pentagon Papers, Justice Hugo Black wrote: “The government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people.”

As that sliver of judicial history reminds us, the conflict between the government’s passion for secrecy and the press’ drive to reveal is not of recent origin. This did not begin with the Bush administration, although the polarization of the electorate and the daunting challenge of terrorism have made the tension between press and government as clamorous as at any time since Justice Black wrote.

Our job, especially in times like these, is to bring our readers information that will enable them to judge how well their elected leaders are fighting on their behalf, and at what price.

These are all honorable arguments, made by honorable men. But there is, in my mind, a gaping hole in them, and the absence signified by that hole is truly significant.

And yes, I do think that the free press can and must serve as a check on governmental power.

And yes, they’re not neutral in the struggle against terrorism, but if they saw themselves first and foremost as citizens – as Ernie Pyle did in his war reporting, as Joe Galloway did in his – would the question even come up?

Let me restate one of their central points in terms I wish they had used. (Changes have been bolded).

Make no mistake, journalists have a large and personal stake in our country’s security. We are citizens of this Republic, and live and work in cities that have been tragically marked as terrorist targets. Reporters and photographers from both of our papers braved the collapsing towers of the World Trade Center to convey the horror to the world. We have correspondents today alongside troops on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. Others risk their lives in a quest to understand the terrorist threat; Daniel Pearl of the Wall Street Journal was murdered on such a mission. We, and the people who work for us, are not neutral in the struggle against terrorism, we are citizens and supporters of the United States.

It’s a minor shift in tone, but a telling one. And the sad joke is that I can’t imagine Keller or Boquet making that shift in tone, which is why I’m so upset at this, and I imagine so many others are as well.

Look, let me put it another way.

I have a younger brother. As brothers do, we have said and done harsh things to each other; out of good intentions and bad, out of the full range of what brothers and families do to each other. Some of the things said and done would be unforgivable, if done by someone else.

Why the double standard?

Because I know my brother loves me, and he knows I love him. Our loyalty to each other has not ever been in question.

Similarly, if journalists did not see themselves as having no higher loyalty than to the story – remember, here’s Mike Wallace:

“No,” Wallace said flatly and immediately. “You don’t have a higher duty. No. No. You’re a reporter!”

…their protests might not ring as hollow.

There’s a much larger issue here in terms of the assumption that the kind of unchecked legal freedom in our country can work without the soft restraints of social and political obligation.

Previous thoughts here and here.