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Just as Michael has shrugged off the idea that he is a hero, he would also probably brush aside the notion that he was doing a service for the American people. Truth, the saying goes, is the first casualty of war, but that glib phrase demeans the skill and dedication not only of those who fight but also of those who report on the fighting. The role Michael played--and the role the Constitution assigned to the press--is to make sure you have the information you need to make decisions about the most momentous issues of the time. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and if that consent is not based on reliable information and on our best effort to ferret out the truth, then our democracy is on shaky ground. "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1816, "it expects what never was and never will be."

Richard Stengel, Managing Editor