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I have subscribed to the WSJ for many years too because of work. I was shocked when they came out with the same story on the same day as the NYT. Feeling betrayed, I shot off a nasty letter to the WSJ telling them essentially that they were no better than the politically motivated and agenda driven NYT rag !! I also told them that after many years I would no longer be subscribing to the WSJ.

I was really surprised when I got the following email back from them -

Dear Reader:
We take national security considerations related to our reporting with the utmost seriousness. That is why, in the past, we have withheld certain information from articles after government officials asked us to and explained how the information, if published, might put at risk American lives. In the case of Friday's article "Treasury Tracks Financial Data in Secret Program," however, government officials made no such request. In fact, they cooperated with our reporting.
You can be assured that if the government asked us to withhold publication, we would consider such a request very seriously.
Thank you for contacting us and giving us an opportunity to address your concerns, and thank you for your readership.
Sincerely,
Paul E. Steiger
Managing Editor
The Wall Street Journal.

I was so insulted when I got that response that I fired off another email back to the WSJ. In my response I basically said WHAT ?? How could you not have understood the dynamics going on with the NYT and the Treasury. How could you not have known the NYT disclosure was the result of a leak. How could you not have recognized the agenda the NYT had against the Bush administration and the Iraq war !! How could you not have known the sensitive nature of the SWIFT program.

I also told them, that in their own article, they had indicated, how the Treasury called the disclosure "regrettable" and referred to the program as an "essential tool" for fighting terrorism. So therefore, why were they insulting my intelligence by trying to tell me otherwise, now. Anyway, I ended my long winded email by telling them ......NOT BUYING, THE EXCUSE OR THE WSJ !!

So the bottom line here is ...... I was really surprised to see the editorial this morning. After reading the editorial, I think I half forgive them and can believe that maybe the administration did seek them out to correct the 30% that the NYT was going to get wrong and to someway ruin the thunder of the NYT.

If anyone is wondering why it took the WSJ a week to respond ....well maybe it took that long to realize how irate their readers really were. And perhaps it took them a week to read their email and get their story straight !! Their story straight ...after getting a feel for the backlash and outrage against the NYT of which they didn't want any part of !!

So the bottom line here is ...... I was really surprised to see the editorial this morning. After reading the editorial, I think I half forgive them and can believe that maybe the administration did seek them out to correct the 30% that the NYT was going to get wrong and to someway ruin the thunder of the NYT.

I am pretty much where you are at. I cannot give them any praise considering the timing. I am still a little skeptical of their explanation. Peggy Noonan wrote an opinion piece in the journal yesterday in which she criticized the NYT and said she disagreed with the decision to publish by the WSJ and in which there was none of the explanation that was provided today. I loved the opinion page in the old days under Bartley when he was ripping Clinton on Whitewater and the Vince Foster "suicide". But to anyone who wants to differentiate between one MSM elite in the NYT and WSJ, I say there is not much difference, and in support of such an assertion, I respond with the following, Do the name Mr Judy Woodruff, aka Al Hunt ring a bell?

If anyone is wondering why it took the WSJ a week to respond ....well maybe it took that long to realize how irate their readers really were.

The brotherhood of journos -- right or wrong -- is a pretty tight bond -- a bond that does the public no service, though. So, yes, the WSJ must have gotten an avalanche of complaints/cancellations in order for it to publish such a vociferous condemnation of the NYT.

I believe the WSJ's explanation (this and other admins have often used the WSJ to counter, or bury, bad news, since it really is not on the cutting edge of straight news), but this line disturbs me:

"Would the Journal have published the story had we discovered it as the Times did, and had the Administration asked us not to? Speaking for the editorial columns, our answer is probably not."

"Probably not" isn't exactly reassuring, and this opinion comes from the "editorial" staff, which the piece makes perfectly plain, has no control over the Journal's news department.

I cancelled my WSJ subscription some time ago due to a local "news" story that I personally knew to be a crock, and the fact that I generally agree with the paper's editorial opinions wasn't enough to keep supporting the news staff's misrepresentation of facts.