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Na de zelfcensuur van de pers om bin Ladens toespraken niet meer uit te zenden, volgt een tweede deel in de parallele oorlog die nu aan de gang is. De ene oorlog is die tegen het terrorisme, de andere oorlog is die tegen de democratie. Het tweede deel van die andere oorlog is het opschorten van de einduitslag van de laatste Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezingen. '[...] a group of major U.S. print and electronic media, including such respected sources as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, have agreed among themselves to give up on an investigation they funded into the conduct of last November's U.S. election.
They had spent more than $1-million to have an independent body analyze the ballots that were cast but not officially counted in Florida, in the seesaw battle that saw George W. Bush squeak past Al Gore and win the presidency. The participants say that, given the dramatic shift in priorities since Sept. 11, they have neither the staff nor the space to pursue a stale-dated story. Come again? The issue is who would have won the U.S. election if the choices of 180,000 voters had been respected; the story has major implications for American democracy and the U.S. Supreme Court's intervention in the vote. Even with a war to cover, that's a tale that needs to be told. It is hard not to see this as further subordination of news judgment to the desire not to rock the government's boat at a perilous time. Once again, journalistic independence is the loser', schrijft The Globe and Mail.