This is not a good time for the press to get snotty.

View from a Height quotes this exchange from an online chat on the WaPo website between a reader and Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of the paper:

Arlington, Va.: Looks like trial by media to me. I don't intend to make light of what happened in Iraq, but don't you think that The Post is just feeding a lynch mob? It would be better to wait for a court to establish what happened, and go from there.

Leonard Downie Jr.: It is our First Amendment responsibility to inform the public as fully as possible regardless of what happens in courts or, in this case, inside the military justice system. To cite just one example, that is what we did with Watergate.

Talk about arrogance. "We're above criticism. It's in the Constitution!" People who think like that deserve to be pariahs. I've suspected for a long time that these people are all motivated by the hope to relive Watergate. This supports that.

Fortunately, they're not all like that. Collin Levey makes a good case that the media have not provided enough coverage of the sarin gas shell. I wonder why Downie hasn't fulfilled his First Amendment responsibility on this issue. Or does the First Amendment only apply to cases that are in court?