Yes, Bill Keller just is not that bright. And that is the problem, isn't it?

Keller digs himself, and the New York Times, into a further hole with his attempt to rationalize and justify the outrageous disclosure of the SWIFT program on the front page of last Friday's New York Times:

"Some of the incoming mail quotes the angry words of conservative bloggers and TV or radio pundits who say that drawing attention to the government's anti-terror measures is unpatriotic and dangerous. (I could ask, if that's the case, why they are drawing so much attention to the story themselves by yelling about it on the airwaves and the Internet.)"

Note to the New York Times: Get yourself a smarter and better editor - and try and climb that first step - on the very long journey-toward reestablishing yourself as the great newspaper that you once were.

Andy McCarthy writes:

National-security secrets? All fair game. If it’s about how we detain, or infiltrate, or defang the monsters pledged to kill us, the New York Times reserves the right to derail us any time it finds such matters … interesting.

But the media’s own sources? That, and that alone, is sacrosanct. Worth protecting above all else.

National-security secrets, after all, are merely the public treasure that keeps us alive. Press informants are the private preserve of the media.

And they’re just more important than you are.

Hugh Hewitt is calling for congressional condemnation of the Times.

Agreed.

President Bush himself has made a statement, and he was visibly slightly (and appropriately) red faced:

President Bush on Monday sharply condemned the disclosure of a secret anti-terrorism program that taps into an immense international database of confidential financial records. "The disclosure of this program is disgraceful," he said.

"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror." ... "Congress was briefed and what we did was fully authorized under the law," Bush said, talking with reporters in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with groups that support U.S. troops in
Iraq.

"We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America," the president said. "What we were doing was the right thing."

Via Captain's Quarters, here is what the 9/11 Commission recommended, as part of the essential course of actions necessary to detect and prevent future terrorist attacks (emphasis mine):

Recommendation: Vigorous efforts to track terrorist financing must remain front and center in U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The government has recognized that information about terrorist money helps us to understand their networks, search them out, and disrupt their operations. Intelligence and law enforcement have targeted the relatively small number of financial facilitators—individuals al Qaeda relied on for their ability to raise and deliver money—at the core of al Qaeda’s revenue stream. These efforts have worked. The death or capture of several important facilitators has decreased the amount of money available to al Qaeda and has increased its costs and difficulty in raising and moving that money. Captures have additionally provided a windfall of intelligence that can be used to continue the cycle of disruption.

Yes, those efforts have worked. But one of those imperative and effective programs has been "outed" by the New York Times. The New York Times has not provided a single shred of credible justification as to why it considered the outing of this program absolutely necessary. Instead, its editor has made arrogant statements about freedom of the press, and the right of the New York Times to do what it so irresponsibly did, while in ignoring the essential question of why it was more beneficial to expose this program, knowing that it would undoubtably be detrimental to our war on terror.

There is no question but that Al Qaeda will, if it has not already, become aware of this information that the New York Times has published. There is also no question that Al Qaeda, and any terrorist organization which would do America harm, will then adapt its methods accordingly to evade detection by the program. An effective United States weapon against the murderous and monstrous Al Qaeda has now been - knowingly and deliberately - neutralized by the New York Times during time of war.

Because of this it is not unreasonable to declare that the New York Times, with the publication of the existence and details of the SWIFT program, has not only aided and abetted Al Qaeda during time of war, but that it has committed an act that is treasonous.

*****

Update: Tony Snow:

"...the New York Times and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public’s right to know in some cases might override somebody’s right to live, and whether in fact the publications of these could place in jeopardy the safety of fellow Americans...."

Indeed!

And Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence directly contradicts Bill Keller during an interview with Hugh Hewitt. A transcript will be up at Radioblogger later today.