Tip of the iceberg

You may recall back in the days when TV commentators broadcasting from places like Saddam's Baghdad or Hue's Peking (Bejing, or whatever the hell it's called now) used to warn viewers that the content of their broadcast had been reviewed and approved by local authorities. The obvious purpose of that warning was to alert the viewer that the story they were about to tell was somewhat one-sided, since obviously the stuff the censors didn't approve had been screened out.

Where did that sense of caution go? Last night, the cable networks ranted and raved on one side or another about the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) that had just been released. Not once, while I was listening did they ever mention that the document Bush released was heavily redacted, amounting only about a page and a half out of a large multi-page document.

Undoubtedly, some of the redacted material was properly kept from the public as it might have revealed the sources or methods by which the intelligence had been obtained or targets we should be aiming at.

Equally undoubtedly, most of the redacted material was stuff Bush didn't want public because it would have been politically embarrassing. I mean, my God, if the stuff we saw in the redacted version (e.g., the Iraq war is the "cause celebre" for jihadists around the world) is the just the tip of the iceberg, what more damaging information is there in the redacted version?

It's also interesting to note that a document that was so sensitive it couldn't even be shared with key members of Congress and had to be kept secret for six months could be so quickly and easily de-classified and handed out to the newspapers and TV networks when it seemed to suit the President's political purposes.