Throughout the tenure of George W. Bush, many of us to the left of center warned that unchecked presidential power was putting Americans' civil liberties in jeopardy. Now with the revelations that the Obama Justice Department seized AP phone records in one leak case and monitored a reporter's communications in another, some on the right are finally furious about infringements of our First and Fourth amendment rights. Apparently, all it took for this belated conservative change of heart was a Democrat in the White House and a Fox News reporter in the government's crosshairs. After all, when Americans learned of President Bush's illegal warrantless wiretapping by the NSA, many of the same voices called for the prosecution of the New York Times. Then, Republican Sen. John Cornyn warned in a GOP talking point regurgitated by myriad conservative mouthpieces, "None of your civil liberties matter much after you're dead."

Word that the Justice Department obtained emails and phone records for James Rosen of Fox News after the publication of his June 11, 2009 story which references CIA findings from "sources inside North Korea" produced a torrent of criticism from the New York Times, the Washington Post and many other liberal voices. Over at Fox News, anchors and guests announced they were "appalled" at the "dangerous lunacy" of DOJ snooping on Rosen, calling it an unindicted co-conspirator "a huge assault on the First Amendment" (Charles Krauthammer) and "Big Brothers stuff" (Sean Hannity). Fox News executive vice president Michael Clemente issued a statement declaring:



"We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press."

Of course, when Republican George W. Bush sat in the Oval Office, the shoe was on the other foot. And Fox News and its right-wing allies wanted to kick the New York Times' ass with it.

On Dec. 16, 2005, Eric Lichtblau and James Risen of the New York Times reported that President Bush had ordered the National Security Administration (NSA) to intercept Americans' overseas electronic communications without first obtaining a warrant as required by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Three days later, President Bush raged about what he deemed "a shameful act" that is "helping the enemy" and added "the Justice Department, I presume, will proceed forward with a full investigation." On Dec. 30, 2005, that investigation was announced, when White House deputy press secretary Trent Duffy told reporters that the Justice Department department "undertook this action on its own" and that Bush had only learned about it from senior staff earlier in the day. Then in May 2006, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales suggested on ABC News' This Week that the New York Times itself could face prosecution over its publication of the NSA domestic surveillance program story:



On the talk show, when asked if journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information, Gonzales responded, "There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility." He was referring to the 1917 Espionage Act, which made it a crime for an unauthorized person to receive national defense information and transmit it to others.

The next month, Deputy U.S. Attorney Matthew W. Friedrich told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Bush DOJ thought that journalists or "anyone" could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for publishing classified information.

As it turned out, those words came as music to the ears of Fox News and the conservative commentariat. After all, as you'll see below, they had been cheerleading for the Bush administration to prosecute the New York Times for months.