Politics... and the press

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to sign an executive order ending the ban on federal funds for international groups that promote or perform abortions, officials told The Associated Press on Friday.

Some stuff deleted here for readability sake

The Democratic official and senior U.S. official who disclosed the plans did so on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to pre-empt Obama's announcement.

...more stuff deleted here for the same reasons as above.

I put this up because of the second paragraph...

"We", our government, cant keep a damn secret.. not even a small one. "Officials" what ever that really means, are shooting their mouths off even though they are expressly NOT authorized to shoot their mouths off. It galls me to read this. Either this un-named official is a right fuckwitt for speaking against a Presidential order or... well I cant think of anything else that you would be... "pre-empting" a Presidential announcement. If an employee did something like this in most any company you could name they would be fired pretty quickly (instantly) and no good recommendation would be forthcoming. How is it that the "press" gets away with this sort of thing. How is it that they can print these stories on the 'word' of a person who clearly has a lack of ethics so profound that they will say things that the President is supposed to be saying. That to me is a LESS than credible source. But the source must at all costs be protected. Its one thing if there is wrong doing going on and there needs to be a whistle blower... but pre-emting a statement as banal as this. What "scoop" is that? I think the 'source' and the writer should be forced to take some "waste of time ethics class" something like an anger management class but for assholes who cant keep their mouths shut, for 1000 hours and have their dirty little family secrets "leaked" to the press. Of course no one would give a crap and you couldn't sell papers that way.
This is not news that needs to be 'scooped' in advance of its time. Most news is not in my opinion. The only time sensitive news that I can think of is the weather and market issues, but I leave room on that list for other potential news worthy issues. Beating the President to the punch on this is just ridiculous. I say ridiculous in the truest sense of the word... not the hip new definition they sling around on 'So You Think You Can Dance'. Those that engage in this sort of soft squishy ethics, for no good reason other than to say that they knew first, are contemptible.
The truly frightening thing to me is this: if they "leaked" this story... what other stories are they "leaking" and to whom are they "leaking" that information to?
I read no less than three stories this week with that disclaimer tag line at the end.