Bill Keller and Dean Baquet issue a joint pronouncement today defending their decision to publish classified details of a safe, legal, and effective counterterror program. There’s little new here. The editors don’t try to argue that the program was illegal, that it had inadequate safeguards, that Congress was not briefed, or that the program was ineffective. In the absence of any such argument, their decision cannot be defended, and they make no serious effort to try. Instead we get the same platitudes and arguments we have seen from each of them individually: they hate terrorism too; they took the decision...
