NYT Leaks Help Bush?

A couple of respected bloggers make the point that the illegal leaks to the NYT may redound to Bush’s benefit. The general public who notes the general brouhaha will also reflect on the fact that there is no evidence that the wiretaps, which themselves may be constitutional, have been employed for domestic political purposes.

The public will also recall the reason that Bush was elected and re-elected, the strong emphasis that the Republicans and Conservatives put towards national security. The recent defeatist proclamations from Democrats on Iraq will combine with the NSA diligence in thwarting a possible terrorist incident to remind the public, already suspicious of the media, that there is a nasty real world out there that the Dems think can be handled with generous NGOs and the Republicans with strong military and intelligence programs.


Powerline notes that

By breaking and emphasizing the story of Bush's efforts to spy on terrorists, The New York Times and the liberal congressional Democrats have reinforced the [national security] image of Bush just as it was beginning to fade from public consciousness.

Hugh Hewitt makes the security issue paramount:

The New York Times and to a lesser extent the Washington Post have decided that they are the ultimate judges of what will constitute a dangerous breach of national security. The trouble is that both papers, and especially the Times are populated by extreme anti-Bush Ahabs, willing to push all judgment aside for the purpose of trying desperately to harm the president. Indeed, the Times may in fact be helping Bush even as the paper injures the country's national security.) The real world experience of the scribblers with intelligence gathering and operations is quite low, and their ability to judge the seriousness of the breaches they are gleefully writing up and slamming on to the front page about as high as their ability to diagnose disease on the basis of an undergraduate degree in biology.

Hewitt goes on to say:

Hopefully a vigorous investigation is under way into who leaked highly classified material to the Times. If the identity of the criminal can be discovered, the country will get a good look at the motives of the leaker, and the best guess is that those motives will be of the low partisan variety --similar, I suspect, to the motives of many of the reporters and editors involved.

If the Plame leak was such a terrific blow to national security, surely the NSA leaks are even more so.

Or does such reasoning go over the head of the MSM and their apologists?