. . . Hugh also discussed this New York Times story about the Secret CIA 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.