Protecting whistleblowers? Or prosecuting them?

Gov't obtains wide AP phone records in probe. If this is part of an investigation into that particular case, it may not be a violation of President Obama's campaign promise, since it isn't clear that any waste, fraud, or abuse was being leaked to the press. However, conducting a spying operation on the Associated Press seems to be a little too close to violating the First Amendment. I thought corporations were people? Don't they have a right to privacy? No more than you or I do, it appears. Not even the press.
This, by the way, is the Obama transition team at change.gov's statement about whistleblowers on the "ethics" page under "Spending Taxpayers' Money Wisely":

Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.

I guess the part about aggressively pursuing and prosecuting whistleblowers was left out of the final draft.

American Jobs Act. sigh.

Well, I commented last night on President Obama's speech to Congress on jobs on WGXC, my local radio station. I thought it worth putting down my thoughts on silicon, since I've already done all the thinking about it.

First of all, I thought that the delivery was one of the better than I've heard from President Obama since he took office. It reminded me more of candidate Obama. Maybe that's because this speech, more than the official announcement that he was running for re-election a while back, was the kick-off to his re-election campaign. He had that whole preacher cadence down, punctuating sections of the speech with the phrase "that's why you should pass this bill now." A nice touch, but one that was clearly not directed at the politicians in front of him, many of whom wouldn't support kibble for kittens if it was an Obama proposal.