Three Great Articles

Three excellent pieces appeared today in two different papers. First in the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan hits it out of the park:

When you hear name-calling like what we've been hearing from the elite media this week, you know someone must be doing something right. The hysterical edge makes you wonder if writers for newspapers and magazines and professors in J-schools don't have a serious case of freedom envy.
The bloggers have that freedom. They have the still pent-up energy of a liberated citizenry, too. The MSM doesn't. It has lost its old monopoly on information. It is angry.

On the same page, Russ Smith on Maryland and Baltimore politics:

Not surprisingly, the Sun's ginned-up plight drew sympathy from liberal journalists and Democrats who reflexively blow out of proportion any imagined infringement of liberties by conservative politicians like Gov. Ehrlich and President Bush. Last month, for example, the New York Times entered the provincial fray, editorializing that the Sun was "obliged" to muck up the judicial calendar and protect the First Amendment.
Given the hysteria whipped up by the Sun's editorial staff, one might think that Gov. Ehrlich had actually closed the paper down, rather than exercise his prerogative to withhold comment from two Sun employees.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles dismissed the lawsuit, saying, "The Sun seeks a privileged status beyond that of the private citizen." The newspaper escalated the skirmish yesterday with an editorial claiming that Judge Quarles gave Gov. Ehrlich's "foolish and undemocratic notion a legitimacy it never deserved." The editorial's opening sentence--"These are sad days for those us who cherish the First Amendment."--summed up just how melodramatic this "controversy" has become.
As a longtime journalist, I also "cherish" the First Amendment; but it's distressing when a newspaper cheapens its value by echoing the ongoing cries of left-wing Americans who interpret every decision by a conservative administration--at the federal and state level--as "shredding the Constitution."

Finally, on a normal day I would say you can't compare the op-ed page of the WSJ and the opposite NYT op-ed page. The WSJ is more relevant and coherent (hello MoDo and Krugman). Fortunately for the Times, they still have Tom Friedman in the stable and he can sometimes produce excellence as he has today:

About two weeks ago, a friend of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri stopped by my office to update me on Lebanon and pass on a message from Mr. Hariri, whom I have known since reporting from Beirut in the late 1970's. The message was that the Lebanese opposition to the Syrian occupation was getting united - inspired both by the example of Iraq and by the growing excesses of the Syrian occupation. Mr. Hariri, his friend said, was planning to use the coming Lebanese parliamentary elections, and a hoped-for victory by the opposition front, to send a real message to the Syrians: It's time for you to go.

...Message from the Syrian regime to Washington, Paris and Lebanon's opposition: "You want to play here, you'd better be ready to play by Hama Rules - and Hama Rules are no rules at all. You want to squeeze us with Iraq on one side and the Lebanese opposition on the other, you'd better be able to put more than U.N. resolutions on the table. You'd better be ready to go all the way - because we will. But you Americans are exhausted by Iraq, and you Lebanese don't have the guts to stand up to us, and you French make a mean croissant but you've got no Hama Rules in your arsenal. So remember, we blow up prime ministers here. We shoot journalists. We fire on the Red Cross. We leveled one of our own cities. You want to play by Hama Rules, let's see what you've got. Otherwise, hasta la vista, baby."

Emphasis mine. Friedman gets it even though at times he panders to the liberal base. All these essays are worth your time and show what newspapers can truly be if they choose to be.