ROBERTS: Let's talk about your comments earlier this week about James Risen, Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times and Dana Priest of The Washington Post who won Pulitzer Prizes for their work uncovering CIA secret prisons in Europe and, as well, the NSA spying scandal. What were your listeners saying about that this morning?
BENNETT: Well, we had a lot of people weigh in. I said that I wondered whether they deserved the Pulitzer more, or actually more deserving was a subpoena or perhaps going to jail. Look, [former New York Times reporter] Judy Miller went to jail, and I don't know why we should treat these folks differently than Judy Miller, particularly, when this is --
ROBERTS: Yeah, but Judy Miller went to -- Judy Miller went to jail for contempt of court.
BENNETT: Right, well, let's see if these guys are asked --
ROBERTS: These people haven't been charged with contempt of court.
BENNETT: Well, if James Risen is asked, right, or Dana Priest is asked, “Who are your sources?” the people who gave them this information committed a crime, leaked classified information. If they are asked, and they do the same thing Judy Miller does, which I expect they would, don't you?
ROBERTS: Right.
BENNETT: Then, they -- then, they would go to jail. Also, there's the Espionage Act.
ROBERTS: But, they -- but, they -- but they haven't been asked yet. You know, they haven't been asked yet, though.
BENNETT: We -- I don't know. If they haven't been asked yet, I assume they will. Then, you can change the tense of my remarks, but not the substance of them. But there's also the Espionage Act.
ROBERTS: Right.
BENNETT: The Espionage Act says it is a crime to publish classified information. They did.
ROBERTS: Right. Just real quick before we let you go. What about the idea that -- the old -- age-old idea that news is what the government doesn't want you to know?
BENNETT: Well, sure. We had [Rep.] Pete Hoekstra [R-MI] on this morning, the chairman of House Intelligence, he said government should be whacked, government should be criticized, but when you're talking about security -- classified security information in a time of war -- about a program that may help us defend ourselves, you've got to -- you've got to respect the government's wishes on that one, I think.
ROBERTS: Fodder for a lot of discussion in the coming days. Bill Bennett, Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute and our own CNN contributor, thanks very much.