Who elected these creeps?

The statements of Bill Keller and Dean Baquet addressing their decisions to publish details of classified anti-terrorism programs, both contain one of my pet peeves about "journalists:" their arrogation to themselves of Constitutional powers which they infer from the grant of freedom of the press.

Keller:

[T]he people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government. They rejected the idea that it is wise, or patriotic, to always take the President at his word, or to surrender to the government important decisions about what to publish.. . .

The power that has been given us is not something to be taken lightly. The responsibility of it weighs most heavily on us when an issue involves national security, and especially national security in times of war.

Note how "freedom of the press" has transmogrified into "power of the press" as if the press were a fourth branch of the Constitutional scheme of government, albeit one not chosen or sustained by any democratic means. This claim of a quasi-constitutional status has become today an assertion that the press is beyond the reach of the laws that everybody else is bound to respect.

While these people claim to be protecting our rights, they are really claiming powers for themselves that supercede those of elected government. This is dangerously close to an end run around democracy, which is the most fundamental property of a republic.
The fact that such powerful men can make such assertions without blushing or serious challenge is more frightening than any threat I can think of short of civil war or war of conquest by a foreign power.

This needs to be smashed right now. It won't be by the government, but it must be by public reaction more powerful and clear than any judicial decision, statute or regulation could ever be. Americans are generally a passive and peaceful people, but they are capable of upheavals when their rights and safety are threatened.

I'm not advocating violence, but I am advocating anger, outrage, outcry and resort to whatever economic and legal power we may have to stop this nonsense in its tracks.