How they'll prove to be his undoing.

Yesterday, I entertained and then rejected the notion that's popular among many journalists that the Bush administration has declared war on the press. Do the Bushies disrespect the press? Give them the runaround when they ask questions of the White House press office? Has the administration sown disinformation, overclassified, reclassified the previously declassified, tightened FOIA, and paid pundits to carry its water?

A million times yes.

Yet stonewalling, investigating the sources of leaks, intimidating reporters with visits from FBI agents, and otherwise making reporters' lives miserable aren't tantamount to a Bush war on the press. Instead of backing the combat metaphor,  I subscribe  to Jay Rosen's more modest diagnosis of an ongoing administration strategy to "decertify" the press from its role as purveyor of news and information. By attacking the press corps' credibility and legitimacy, the Bush administration expects to frame the national debate—make that "eliminate the national debate."

So, what can journalists do to fight back? A little less whining in the face of tin-horn presidential oppression would seem to be in order.

The best journalists practice judo, using their foes' brute force against them. Every time the Bush administration cracks down on openness, it creates new sources for journalists inside the bureaucracies. Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, says the strategy of decertifying the press works only if you can block the press from obtaining alternative sources of information. That's something the administration hasn't been able to do, says Blanton, citing the blockbuster stories about the Bush's secret prisons, secret torture programs, secret rendition operation, warrantless wiretaps, and so on.

Blanton attributes such scoops to a "revolt of the JAGs," his shorthand for the recent round of whistle-blowing by career civil service and career military officers. It's not that these whistle-blowers oppose secrecy, he notes, giving the example of the FISA court, which issues secret warrants. In the 20-plus years of FISA warrants, not one has been leaked because most everyone respects the FISA process. The establishment of FISA was publicly debated in congressional hearings, which demonstrated the need for such a court, but one that operated under legal limits.

He contrasts the public FISA process with the secret machinations of the "torture lawyers"—Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, John Yoo, et al.—whose primary goal is to enhance presidential power. In the minds of many honorable government employees, the expansion of presidential power in the post-9/11 era lacks basic legitimacy, making it vulnerable to leaks.

Blanton points to the February report by Jane Mayer in The New Yorkerabout retiring U.S. Navy General Counsel Alberto J. Mora as an example of an admirable JAG who resisted the administration's attempt to establish what he considered unlawful policies of cruelty and torture for terror suspects.

"The government has planted the seeds of its own undoing," Blanton says, who believes that the administration is much more interested in prosecuting sources than it is journalists. "If you're going to decertify the press, you must also cut off alternative information sources."

Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy, counsels journalists to protect freedom of the press by practicing it.