SELLING OUT

Time magazine, playing the role of Bush administration lap dog, has decided it would sell out the First Amendment and its own reporter, Matt Cooper, and turn over notes about the CIA leak in which an undercover was identified by name — a felony.

In a statement, Time said it believes "the Supreme Court has limited press freedom in ways that will have a chilling effect on our work and that may damage the free flow of information that is so necessary in a democratic society."

But it also said that despite its concerns, it will turn over the records to the special counsel investigating the leak.

By contrast, Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter also subpoenaed (and one of the biggest suckers in parroting the Bush administration's shoddy claims that Iraq possessed WMD), had said she would sooner do time in federal prison than reveal her sources.

It's horrifying to think of how Time might have betrayed the trust of historically important whistleblowers, such as Daniel Ellsberg, Mark "Deep Throat" Felt or even Jeffrey Wigand, the tobacco executive who bravely revealed the industry's duplicity, as dramatized in "The Insider." (CBS's "60 Minutes" tucked tail at first, fearing a lawsuit.)

By Time magazine's standards of rolling over, reporters might have gone to jail for reporting about issues of real national importance, such as The Pentagon Papers, Watergate or even a story that challenged an industry with a powerful lobby like Big Tobacco.

Time magazine is dead wrong.