Obama, AP and Fox News: Be Careful What We Wish For

The ongoing stories of the Obama Administration's leak investigations and the possibility of First Amendment infringement (that is, the part of the First Amendment dealing with a free press), provide Republicans and Conservatives with some fine entertainment, but in the end, we have to stay out of this fight.  It isn't that we don't value a free press and its Constitutional protection--we do.  But as Justice Jackson told us in 1949, the Constitution is not a Suicide Pact.  The Press is doing a fine job fending for itself on this front, and this intramural battle is only one part of the larger comms point we should be making--and that is the overreach of government and the downside thereof.

Remember folks--we had a Republican President for 8 years.  During that time, President Bush's detractors at State, DoD and elsewhere LEAKED like sieves.  Really damaging stuff.  There HAS to be some penalty to members of the Press who step over the line, and Republicans do themselves and the country no good by simply jumping onboard the Press bandwagon in order to score political points.