The following is a Code-Orange Advisory to patriotic truth-tellers, sometimes called whistleblowers or leakers: It is anachronistically naïve to expect the New York Times or other organs of today’s Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) to publish classified material like the Pentagon Papers without their first clearing it with the government.
What brings this issue to the fore is the powerful, Academy Award-finalist documentary, "The Most Dangerous Man in America," which paints a profile in courage by (1) Daniel Ellsberg, who risked serving life in prison by copying classified material exposing the lies behind the Vietnam War, and (2) the New York Times, which dared to publish reams of Ellsberg’s material in June 1971.
It’s a gripping, suspenseful story — even for those of us with some gray in our hair who remember the Times of those times as well as how the drama played out. It is also an unusual story for today, inasmuch as it depicts a victory of inspiring courage over disheartening treachery. We see a brave devotion to the Constitution and democratic values not only by Ellsberg and the Times but by the U.S. Supreme Court, too.
If there is a downside to the documentary’s appearance now, it would be the temptation that government insiders might feel to reach the naïve conclusion that the Times of today is the same Times that risked the wrath of a vindictive Richard Nixon to help end a bloody war while also winning a landmark Supreme Court decision that fortified the protections of the First Amendment.
