William J. Bennett

About the Author: William J. Bennett is senior editor of the National Review, a biweekly conservative magazine. He previously served as U.S. secretary of education and later headed the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

A recent episode of Saturday Night Live opened with a skit parodying the Pentagon's press briefings on the Gulf War. It featured a [defense secretary] Dick Cheney look-alike and a Marine general. Nothing new there, of course; the government has always been fair game for spoofs. But what made this sketch different— and in some ways significant—was that the object of ridicule was not Cheney or the military, but the press, presented as a pack of baying wolves. The defense secretary, infinitely patient, explained that they would be happy to answer any...