Has Ashcroft said anything about this incident?

Unfortunately, the new Democratic-controlled Congress will be reluctant to investigate the Bush Administration's widespread wrong-doing for fear it will be perceived (or more likely portrayed by the right-wing noise machine) as a vendetta. And, too, in my view the American people seem to have a forgive-and-forget mentality, a let's-move-on psyche about evil such as this. I would be very surprised if the law breakers in this administration are brought to justice.

Remember what happened to MSNBC's rising star reporter Ashleigh Banfield when in April 2003 she publicly objected to the fawning press coverage of the war. Where is she now?

The moderate right wingers will just say that the two NSA personnel were bad apples who shouldn't have been doing those things. They might push for their prosecution. The hard right wingers will say the linguists were listening to Arabs conversations, so it was fair game.

Glenn, you may well be the cause of some of these about-faces by "journalists," but they would never admit it.

Republicans denouncing the closure of Guantanamo are crying wolf. First, Guantanamo represents a significant way extremists recruit new jihadis. Its closure will make America safer. Second, those worried about transferring terrorists to the American mainland obviously never heard of the Blind Sheikh, Ramzi Youssef, Zacharias Moussaoui, Richard Reid, Jose Padilla, and others. They have all been held for years in U.S. facilities.

We can't win the war on terror playing Whack-a-Mole. We have to win the hearts and minds campaign. Closing Guantanamo and secret CIA prisons is a good first step.

Glen,

I'm a little disappointed in this post. First, the blog you quote is more than two years old. Second, the author, Robert Niles, cites anonymous sources: "I've heard several journalists make the same comment at various industry forums: That blogs are a "parasitic" medium that wouldn't be able to exist without the reporting done at newspapers."

I know you have criticized journalists for not naming sources, but do you have a double standard when it comes to bloggers? What journalists have called bloggers parasites? It's OK to name them.