***

            A little more than two hundred and twenty-five miles to the Northeast, a middle-aged man wearing gray slacks, a blue blazer, and a tie-less light blue dress shirt, sat alone at a green wooden table in Bryant Park and quietly wept.

            As his mood could not have been more somber, he deliberately picked a corner of the park still bathed in the late morning sunlight.  As the park was located behind the New York public library on 5^th Avenue, and surrounded by the skyscrapers of 6^th Avenue and the cross streets, he knew his time in the warm sunshine would be limited.    That was okay by him.  He just needed it to last long enough to make one phone call.

            In the middle of the third ring, his call was answered.  “Hello.”

            “Hi, dad,” said the man in a halting voice.

            “What’s wrong, son?”  Asked the father from his home in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

            The man let out a small laugh as he wiped away a tear with the sleeve of his sport-coat.  “You mean since we talked last night?  Well, aside from the fact that I’m still a mental wreck and can’t imagine living in a world without Susan, I just quit the paper.  I want to come home.”

            The father tried to keep his voice as neutral as possible.  “You just quit your job at The New York Times.”

            “Yes, dad,” answered the man as he automatically crouched down while watching a large white truck pass by on 6^th Avenue.  “I had to. It’s what I started to tell you last night.  No matter how many ways I look at it, if I want to be honest with myself, then I have to admit that my paper with its monolithic liberal mindset, bears some responsibility for this new wave of terrorist attacks.”

            “Son.  These terrorists have sick minds…”

            Before he could continue, his son angrily cut him off.  “So what.  If you enable a sick or murderous mind, aren’t you just as guilty?  Dad, my wife was killed in one of those movie house explosions over six weeks ago.  This is not some liberal academic exercise.  My life as I know it has been destroyed.  What role did my paper play in letting the terrorists reconstitute themselves and enter our country.  What role…what role…did I play?”

            “Oh, son,” said the father as he tried to comfort his only child.  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

            “It’s anything but ridiculous, dad.”  Said the son as he held the cell phone tighter to his left ear.  “I’ve been with this paper for over ten years.  I’ve been here as we only reported the negative from Iraq and none of the positive.  I’ve been here the whole time this paper led a non-stop campaign against the Patriot Act.  I’ve been here as this paper deliberately chose to publish national secrets.  Stories that aided and abetted the enemy.  The enemy, dad.  Terrorists.  The New York Times -- because of their blind hatred of George W. Bush -- published stories that alerted the terrorists to our methods for tracking them and gathering intelligence regarding their next attacks.”

            “But that was the paper, son.  You didn’t write those stories.”

            “Oh please, dad.  We both know better than that.  I know the people responsible.  I socialized with them.  I worked with them.  I knew it was wrong and never said a word.  I never quit in protest.  I never did anything until it was too late.”

            “You’re still in shock.  You are being way too hard on yourself.  Come home for a few days and…”

            The man jumped from his chair and yelled back into the phone.  “That’s bull, dad.  I’m not being hard enough on myself.  What’s the true definition of traitorous behavior?  Huh?  What’s the true definition?  What do you call it when, for night after night, the liberal networks and cable networks air that grotesque montage of U.S. military vehicle after U.S. military vehicle being blown to pieces in Iraq?  Who do you think shot that footage, dad?  It was the very terrorists who just killed and maimed those brave U.S. troops.  That’s who filmed it.  The networks knew that and still eagerly aired a snuff film shot by terrorists.  Define traitorous, dad, because…”

            Just then, there was a deafening explosion that rocked the city and came from the direction of Time Square.

            With his ears still ringing from the blast, the man could hear his father screaming into the phone, “What was that?”

            As the now former reporter for the New York Times watched his fellow park visitors cry, embrace each other, or flee in all directions, he answered his father in the clearest voice he’d had in months.

            “The liberal media’s legacy, dad.  The liberal media’s legacy.  I pray I see you soon.”