Glenn Greenwald: The mission of the Beltway journalist

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/11/marcus/

Earlier this week, I wrote:

It's difficult to select what one thinks is the single most illustrative symbol of how our country now functions, but if I were forced to do so, I would choose the fact that it is America's journalists -- who claim to be devoted to serving as a check on Government and exposing its secrets -- who are, instead, leading the way in demanding that the Government's actions of the last eight years be concealed; in trying to quash efforts to investigate and expose those actions; and in demanding immunity for government lawbreakers. What kind of country does one expect to have where (with some noble exceptions) it is journalists, of all people, who take the lead in concealing, protecting and justifying government wrongdoing, and whose overriding purpose is to serve, rather than check, political power?

Today, The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus provides as pure an example of this warped "journalistic" mentality as one can imagine:

On the legal issues entwined in the war on terrorism, Obama is, again wisely, proceeding more slowly than many civil libertarians demand. Guantanamo will be closed -- eventually. Military commissions have been halted, torture policies renounced and secret memorandums released.

Yet the Obama Justice Department backstopped the Bush Justice Department's assertion of the state secrets privilege to block lawsuits challenging wiretapping and extraordinary rendition. The administration argued that prisoners in Afghanistan cannot challenge their detention in court. It leaned on the British government to keep evidence of alleged torture secret.

Look at what Marcus is cheering for in that second paragraph, what she considers to be good things: Preventing judicial scrutiny of illegal government spying and kidnapping programs. Abducting people with no due process, shipping them off to Afghanistan, and then locking them up for years with no rights of any kind. Purposely concealing -- keeping secret -- evidence of massive government torture programs. These are the extreme secrecy and suppression efforts that this "journalist" favors.

(snip)

More at the link...