The Washington Post reports that Defense Secretary Robert Gates broke with CIA Director Leon Panetta, and four past CIA Directors from Republican and Democratic administrations, to counsel President Barack Obama to release selected CIA memos describing enhanced interrogation techniques used to extract information from captured terrorists. His reason? It must have been a good one.

Robert M. Gates indicates that he supported the release of sensitive memos on detainee interrogation methods last week because he viewed their ultimate release as inevitable.

Reveal secrets before they are leaked? Interesting philosophy. It leaves just one question, though. Why have any secrets at all?

Let’s see everything Mr. Secretary. Troop movements, battle plans, weapons systems, intelligence assets, names of covert agents, all of it. It’s all bound to be disclosed someday anyhow, right? Might as well just get it out there now. No need to actually protect sensitive national security information. America should just dump all of its secrets out in the open and hope that no damage results. After all, in the age of Obama, hope is the policy and our protection.