Meanwhile, the opportunity to make true allies of the Pakistani people of the US is being frittered away and ceded to the Taliban by our failure to aggressively apply our military to a peace mission, the saving of their drowning population. As is more than clearly stated daily, the disaster there far exceeds the needs of the Indonesian tsunami and the Haitian earthquake combined and, while we have hardly succeeded in remediation of the latter emergency with a people already an ally, the former work has virtually eliminated Islamic hatred of us there. There are so many friends we could be making while saving their lives!

Actually, bb_j, I think this story was really about the opinion, voiced by Bob years ago but probably ascribed to by Brooke as well, that those executive powers grabbed for Bush by Cheney would forever remain within the tool chest of future administrations including President Obama's.

It coincides with the false impression of many on the Left that Obama was the "peace" candidate, justified only by being tone deaf to what he actually said. More then others, I suspect, he knows the dangers that Wahabiism - an extreme Islamic sect - pose to a nuclear armed and poorly governed state such as Pakistan which is barely allied with us. So, he finds it essential to take advantage of the second Bush's first war to provide a base to repair and refuel the drones he hopes will hold Taliban and Al Qaeda away from those nukes!

Fussing over these leaks distracts from a truth Joe Biden already laid bare. Counter-terrorism is what we're about over there. The rest is probably just window dressing.

I think people are angry because they are worried about bias, and frankly, I think the concern is overstated. We should take it for granted that every reporter has a point of view, and we should expect that, and accept the responsibility ourselves for getting more than one point of view.

These days, we see complaints about "bias" from certain political pundits who will turn around and distribute "facts" that are simply incorrect. Fox News is not a travesty because it's conservative it's a travesty because it represents the complete disregard of any journalistic standards. Today, every liar in the media will complain about bias.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-10-2009/sean-hannity-uses-glenn-beck-s-protest-footage

Oh jeez.

I think some people have good ideas for future stories, but this is a story about the Obama administration investigating leaks. It's not about the Freedom of Information act, and it's not specifically about Wikileaks. I think it's a good thing you folks aren't editors, or On the Media would be a big sprawling confused mess.

This is a strange story. Wikileaks dropped tons of docs with little if any care for what was true or untrue, for whose lives were put at risk. As announced by the Taliban, people will most likely die because of these leaks.

I am torn, on the one hand I want whistle-blowers to be able to blow BUT on the other hand how is a government suppose to function if every decision is leaked.

As my mother says, if Normandy had happened today you would have had CNN and MSNBC waiting on shore for the soldiers.

I am also bugged by the ways in which this story conflates a pledge for transparency with a concern for leaks. But let's be honest, for the "media" there is no level of privacy in government that would be enough.

Wikileaks vetted the story through numerous 'real' news papers with real journalists, that evidently checked with the Pentagon before publishing. So the complaint is not that there was a leak, but it went through a third party.

Both sides of the story - Back in the day that meant something as the newspapers controlled the flow of information. Today the US government can post its side of the story on its own web pages and go straight to the top of google.

Why are reporters supposed to check with the US government? Should they have checked with the Saddam Hussein government or North Korea's or Iran's governments today?

Why does the US government (and a few others, notably Israel's) deserve the special privilege.

As for getting "the other side", when did NPR *ever* get the progressive side on ANY issue?

Hypocrisy without limit at NPR.

Pretty sad excuse for analysis on Obama and leaks, On the Media.

You utterly fail to raise key points:

1. Wikileaks says, with evidence, that it DID approach the Obama administration and Obama dismissed them.

2. No mention that there has been a steady attack on FOIA for 20 years and that Obama has joined Bush in attacking FOIA.

3. You failed to mention that by both liberal and libertarian thinking (i.e., excepting only so-called moderates and conservatives), the prevailing view is that information held by OUR government is OUR information. Pure right.

4. You clearly, but tacitly, buy into the mainstream media is right dogma. There would have been no _market_ for Wikileaks if not for the glaring, repeated, and gross failures of the New York Times, NPR, CNN and others. The Times, for example, has repeatedly buried stories until it was too late for them to have any relevant and _preventive_ effect. NPR is _worse_ -- by a long margin. And CNN -- under the 'exalted' Walter Isaacson _allowed_ the Pentagon to place what in effect were propagandists in its newsroom.

Outrageous that On the Media had not the courage or even the decency to dig any further than the shallow pandering Shane Harris.

Pathetic.

oops. that was supposed to be "leaks".

The first story you linked to doesn't mention links. What are you talking about?

What, no mention of the big politicized FOIA story?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128670006

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128897916

You could hange your name to "Off the Media" on this one.