I Don't Think This Is a Good Sign

Today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates defended the Congress and the free press in his address to Naval Academy graduates:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates encouraged the graduating U.S. Naval Academy class of 2007 Friday to "remember the importance of two pillars of our freedom under the Constitution: the Congress and the press."

"Both surely try our patience from time to time, but they are the surest guarantees of the liberty of the American people," Gates told the 1,028 graduates...

Gates said the Founding Fathers wisely understood that the Congress, a free press and a nonpolitical military are needed in a free country.

"The press is not the enemy and to treat it as such is self-defeating," he said.

I'm glad he said this, but I don't think it's a good sign that, on the 220th anniversary of the convening of the Consitutional Convention, that the Secretary of Defense has to remind us that "the press is not the enemy."