In an interview with CNN’s Larry King last week, President Bush defended himself as a President who supports a free press.

When asked whether he thought another event on the scale of Sept. 11 could occur in the U.S. in the near future, Bush gravely said, “Larry, yes, I do.” Bush further elaborated by saying there have been terror plots in the past the U.S. has disrupted.

“We’ve disrupted plots. And not only here but elsewhere. And it’s — you know, I’m worried about some of the tools we’re using being disclosed. I — I think it’s a huge mistake,” Bush said.

The specific “mistake” Bush is referring to is the publication of a June 23 article by the New York Times which outlines the government’s ability, under a program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, to gain access to financial records. The records are kept in a vast international database and include banking transactions for thousands of Americans, according to government and industry officials.

Following the publication of the article, Bush called the publication “disgraceful” and quickly labeled it a threat to national security. In King’s interview, he pointed out that Bush blasted the New York Times; the Los Angeles Times, however, also published the information.

“Let me put it this way,” Bush said. “I am disturbed that people would feel comfortable enough going to newspapers with state secrets. It doesn’t make any sense to me to give the enemy — our — our game plan on how we’re going to deal with them … I do support a free press strongly. I also want people to recognize that we’re at war and it’s just — it’s just — I just don’t understand. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Bush, though he claims to support a free press, clearly does not take into consideration the intent of the framers of the Constitution when they created the First Amendment, granting freedom of the press. The press exists to maintain a watch on government activities and keep them in balance. The New York Times was simply exercising its right to a free press by publishing the story.

Furthermore, the New York Times did not endanger any U.S. troops or provide aid to the enemy by publishing the story. The article’s contents merely provided general details confirming the existence of the program, not how the government planned to specifically use it against the war on terror. To think that Bush would use the Times as a scapegoat for low job approval ratings is what is disgraceful.

For most Americans, the privacy and security of their wealth is yet a right to protect and cherish. The idea that government agents might be secretly viewing this information is unsettling. At the same time, also unsettling is the idea of a president who does not respect one of Americans’ most sacred Constitutional freedoms.