I don't know if this is malicious or not. However, the timing is so... convienient that it makes me wonder. It all looks so innocent. Providing maps and pictures of where the VP and other top Cabinent members spend their free time can't be a good idea, though. Can everyone say National Security? Michelle Malkin has an excellent post on it.

To some degree, I feel like something must be going down. However, I am not a conspiracy theorist by nature. Such thoughts make me feel like I'm just getting paranoid. But you can't deny that all of this seems to be happening at the same time. Remember in May, when Rumsfeld's house was attacked by protestors? Karl Rove, his house was host to some left wing thugs.

I might have to agree with Ms. Malkin on the whole thing. Something wicked this way comes.

On kind of the same note, I'd like to talk about the Wall Street Journal's involvement in all of this. Updated yesterday, this article reveal's the Journal's perspective of what happened.

Exhibit A, ladies and gentlemen:

According to Tony Fratto, Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, he first contacted the Times some two months ago. He had heard Times reporters were asking questions about the highly classified program involving Swift, an international banking consortium that has cooperated with the U.S. to follow the money making its way to the likes of al Qaeda or Hezbollah. Mr. Fratto went on to ask the Times not to publish such a story on grounds that it would damage this useful terror-tracking method.

Sometime later, Secretary John Snow invited Times Executive Editor Bill Keller to his Treasury office to deliver the same message. Later still, Mr. Fratto says, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, the leaders of the 9/11 Commission, made the same request of Mr. Keller. Democratic Congressman John Murtha and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte also urged the newspaper not to publish the story.

The Times decided to publish anyway, letting Mr. Fratto know about its decision a week ago Wednesday. The Times agreed to delay publishing by a day to give Mr. Fratto a chance to bring the appropriate Treasury official home from overseas. Based on his own discussions with Times reporters and editors, Mr. Fratto says he believed "they had about 80% of the story, but they had about 30% of it wrong." So the Administration decided that, in the interest of telling a more complete and accurate story, they would declassify a series of talking points about the program. They discussed those with the Times the next day, June 22.

Around the same time, Treasury contacted Journal reporter Glenn Simpson to offer him the same declassified information. Mr. Simpson has been working the terror finance beat for some time, including asking questions about the operations of Swift, and it is a common practice in Washington for government officials to disclose a story that is going to become public anyway to more than one reporter. Our guess is that Treasury also felt Mr. Simpson would write a straighter story than the Times, which was pushing a violation-of-privacy angle; on our reading of the two June 23 stories, he did.

** (Some blog orginally posted about this same article. However, I can't remember this one. If it was you, leave a comment or something so I can give the appropriate credit where its due.)

Huh. That reveals a lot. The WSJ is a very boring newspaper, but goshdarnit they are dependable to the last. Yes, I realize that this is a biased source, but come on. This is a newspaper who could be fighting with the Times, arguebly the most influencial print media of our time. (With the exception of the my generation's unfortunate following of Cosmo Teen and Sports Illustrated.) Instead, they are fighting against it. The Journal, if it was smart, would throw its weight with the Times and hide under the First Amendment.

Instead, the Journal is practicing journalism. A poor reporter would report anything that came its way, regardless of fact or purpose. That is what the Times is doing. It reminds me of a kindergardner that I nanny for. "Cait! My brother called me stupid! Punish him!" Except, in this little allegory, ladies and gentlemen, the general citizenry are the babysitters and the Times is this whiny little kid. However, a good journalist would realize that there's a time and place for everything and let it be. Picking its battles, this smart journalist would realize that not everything is worth a huge fight, and keeping it secret would benefit more than it would hurt.

Congrats to the WSJ for being so patriotic.

The government is not looking to prosecute its own citizens, people. Its looking to protect its citizens. The enemy here is the Times, not the government.