Calling in their souls

Victor Davis Hanson details many of the ways in which the liberal American press has abdicated its adversarial role since one of their own became President of the United States.

The Obama administration did not object to AP reporters leaking classified information per se. Indeed, it had leaked the most intimate details of the cyber war against Iran, the drone protocols and the bin Laden raid to pet reporters like the New York Times' David Sanger and David Ignatius of the Washington Post. The election-year "exclusive" revelations of both usually portrayed Obama as an underappreciated, muscular commander in chief.

The crime instead was that AP was freelancing and might publish leaks that were not always flattering. Since long ago the media had made a pact, it was natural that the Obama administration assumed it had a right to monitor what it had bought.