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With recent news of Wikileaks and the case pending, I ran across this interview with a whistleblower from another time - Daniel Ellsberg and the now-famous Pentagon Papers. Much of the outrage and controversy surrounding Ellsberg at the time had to do with his releasing sensitive documents regarding secret meetings over the Vietnam War. How that was condemned by some to be a horrible betrayal of National Security, but it was supported by others as a means of ending an unjust and unjustifiable war. Release of the papers, and their subsequent printing in the New York Times focused attention on how corrupt our policy was and how blatant our government lied in order to maintain the status quo, at the expense of thousands of American lives.

It was thought by many to be the catalyst in ending the war sooner and, during the time of this interview (July 30, 1972) Ellsberg was in the midst of a trial, the conviction would have been a sentence of some 115 years.

Here is the complete appearance of Daniel Ellsberg, as interviewed by William F. Buckley on Buckley's Firing Line Program from July 30, 1972

(Even hair was perplexed)

For all the spin, analysis and hand-wringing going on over our economy of late, we often forget it got a start somewhere. Fingers often point in the direction of the 80's where conflicting stories abound, but it's a good bet that the "supply side" theory of the economy had something to do with it.

As this episode of Face The Nation from May 29, 1988 illustrates, Treasury Secretary James Baker just couldn't break himself away from his rose colored glasses, even for a minute.

James Baker: “I noticed the intro to your program, the “yes, but . .” – but if I may say so, people have been out there saying “yes, but” since the spring of 1983. They’ve been telling us that “yes, things are okay now, but the wheels are gonna fall off, the economy’s gonna go in the tank, and it hasn’t. And it is not going to.”

Leslie Stahl: “How long is it not going to?”

James Baker: “Well . . .well into the foreseeable future. Well into the foreseeable future”

Yes, well into the foreseeable future - hopefully the future where nobody will notice what happened in the 80's. Hopefully by that future, some miracle will magically occur and all our economic woes will vanish. Or all those practitioners of Voodoo Economics will be dead, senile or too in-disposed to care.

Welcome to the future.

(That eternal conflict between First and Sixth Amendments)

It seems the Press has always gotten into a certain amount of hot water where the subject of sources comes up. We all remember the Judith Miller/Marc Cooper fracas that took place some years back.

There was a precedent though - certainly not the first one, but one of the more prominent. The infamous Dr. X Trial of 1978 and the notes of New York Times reporter Myron Farber and the murder trial of Dr. Mario Jascalevich, accused to killing five patients in 1966. It was Farbers New York Times investigative pieces that brought Jascalavich to trial and it was the notes and sources of Farber that put Farber in jail for contempt. The whole question of confidentiality and protection of sources came to light and it was an argument that wound up going all the way to the Supreme Court.

In the end, SCOTUS ruled against the prosecutions argument, but Jascalevich wound up acquitted anyway (lack of evidence).

But it did serve as a reminder how fragile the Amendments are. Here is a commentary delivered by CBS News correspondent and anchor Dallas Townsend from August 17,1978.

(John Daly - insisted on calling Hunter S. Thompsons writing style "Bongo Journalism")

In lieu of the recent Senate Bill that questions validity of citizen bloggers, I went back to a National Town Meeting broadcast from 1974 to hear what the status of the media was then. It wasn't that much better, particularly if you were judged to be in the "alternative media" which meant the Underground press back then. However, in all fairness, in 1974 Broadcast news departments were ten times the size they are now. The hours spent on documentaries and special news programming was huge and newspapers offered a plethora of in-depth reports and daily investigative journalism. Unrecognizable from what they are today.

The panel on this broadcast consisted of Pat Buchanan, Richard Harwood of The Washington Post, Richard Goodwin of Rolling Stone and Thomas Asher of the Media Access Project. The program was moderated (and somewhat mangled) by , former newscaster for ABC and CBS, game show host and professional personality.

The subject was "Critiquing The Media" and of course Buchanan spends much time railing against the injustices of the "librul media" and complaining about imbalance. This coming from a man who was deeply entrenched in the Nixon White House.

The subject of Hunter S. Thompson comes up and that's when Daly lets his disconnect be known. Unable to say the words "gonzo Journalism" he insists on a variation of either Bongo and Bonzo Journalism and dismisses it, as does Buchanan who dismisses Rolling Stone in general as no representation of actual news reporting - the only news to be had was from The New York Times or The Washington Post and perhaps Time Magazine.

Richard Goodwin: “I’m not in favor of fictional journalism, and the headline I gave an example, is not intended as fiction, but as fact. I think one of the problems that you have is, even use of the word fact and what constitutes a fact. You’re talking about convictions, attitudes, opinions, judgments. These aren’t facts in the sense that a glass of water is a fact. They require that you impose your own judgment. Somebody says something; is he lying, does he mean it, is it true? And simply to say that he said it, in itself is an assertion, at least to the people who read it, that perhaps or probably what he said is true. It’s a fact that he said it, but he may not be speaking facts or the truth. And unfortunately, most things, most interesting or complicated things in the world are not very, it’s not often easy to decide what the facts are without bringing to it a set of values and personal convictions. And if you withdraw from that you allow those who make the presentation to you to determine what the truth is . . .”

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