He’s getting pounded for it, but Time magazine’s uber-honcho Norman Pearlstine said something very sane when he announced Time would turn over Matt Cooper’s notes to the Valerie Plame grand jury after the Supreme Court refused to hear Cooper’s case. “If presidents are not above the law,” he said, invoking a decision by Harry Truman to surrender documents after a Supreme Court decision went against him, “how is it that journalists are?…Thinking we’re above the law rings wrong to me.”

That’s exactly right. Journalists are not above the law. Period. If documents are subpoenaed, you have to surrender them or face jail time. That is the way it works for everybody. Nothing makes me hate my profession more than the assertion of special privilege, especially since journalists tend to despise libertarian principles unless their oxes are being goed.