Comments on: The Plame Game Becomes the Name Game

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 15:04:45 +0000

Hi all–

Judith Miller is the friend of a friend, and I like her tremendously, from afar. (We’ve never met.)

I like her because our friend likes her, & I trust him.

And I like her because of what I’ve seen of her on TV.

She was on Larry King once with another journalist who was fairly old, and was obviously losing his sharpness.

When asked stupid questions, she was gentle and self-deprecating.

I think she’s a good soul.

+++

Even if I didn’t like her, I’d be on her side.

To me, it’s appalling that she’s in jail for a story she didn’t write about a crime that (apparently) didn’t happen.

It’s Martha Stewart all over again. (See! I don’t like Martha Stewart, and I was on her side, too.)

It’s prosecutorial overreach.

I don’t like watching the government march people off to jail without very, very good reason.

Like, say, they robbed or murdered somebody.

And I’m not especially fond of our judiciary as a whole at the moment.

I seem to be a small-l libertarian.

++++

Seeing as how Judith Miller has been ripped apart, limb from limb, by the anti-war left, I’m hoping that those of us who support the war will consider going easy on her.

Last year I wrote a letter to Dan Okrent supporting Miller (and Bill Keller) over her reporting on Saddam’s WMD.

When it was published I received a furious call from an old friend accusing me of being a Bush voter.

We patched that up, but I never heard again from another person in my life, a reasonably important professional contact here in New York.

I don’t know that my letter was the reason.

But the timing is suspicious, and I have tried to contact this person, with no response.

So I’m risking friendships & losing colleagues defending a person on the left from the left.

Well, tant pis.

++++

I don’t want leaks and leakers to go away.

Secrecy is hideously toxic to democracy inside government and out.

I know this from direct personal experience.

There was a time in my life when the only thing allowing me to function was leaks & leakers.

Sometimes the only way to fight fire is with fire.

Secrecy to check secrecy.

++++

That said, the CIA’s 4-year war-via-leak against the White House has been infuriating.

Ed and I both think newspapers should publish a guide to leaks all readers can access any time they wish.

It should appear prominently inside newspapers and on web sites.

We came up with this after Ed had lunch with a journalism professor at NYU. She told him there’s lingo for sources that is known only to other journalists (and, I assume, to the sources themselves).

‘Close to the administration’ means one thing; ‘ties to the administration’ means another. (These are hypotheticals; I don’t remember what the categories were.)

If all readers knew the code–or just knew that there is a code–leaks and leakers would be substantially demystified.

Because the real problem in most cases isn’t leaks.

The real problem is public naivete about who leaks and why.

The other innovation I’d like to see, which we are seeing now from Fox News (right?) is full posting of raw materials and sources.

Leave the source anonymous, but let’s see the full transcipt of what he or she had to say.

Along with the CODE.

POSTSCRIPT:

The single most demystifying moment for me, vis a vis leaks, was reading in Okrent’s column that the typical anonymous source is a government official briefing a roomful of reporters ‘on background’ inside a well-lit conference room.

For a person who cut her teeth on ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN, that was a shocker.

++++

Sorry to be so long-winded–

By: PBRMan

PBRMan — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 02:59:11 +0000

I am not aware of any anonymous “whistleblower” who alerted the nation to My Lai, Abu Ghraib or Iran-Contra. Every last fact that surfaced in Watergate would have surfaced, and indeed did surface, through the actions of Judge Sirica and the Ervin committee. For whatever marginal contribution Deep Throat made–and he contributed mostly to the aggrandizement of Woodeard and Bernstein–there is no question that he violated his oath by leaking confidential information about an ongoing criminal investigation to the press. That may produce a result you like when the parties being investigated are not to your liking, but the potential for extraordinary injustice stemming from such a practice should be apparent to all. I have not seen any sensible explanation for why Deep Throat could not have gone to any U.S. Attorney, or to the Ervin committee, with whatever he knew. He violated the law to protect his job and his pension, and now his family is about to reap a huge windfall for it. Sorry, but he’s no hero of mine.

By: pandaba

pandaba — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 02:08:59 +0000

Maybe I’m alone here in this sentiment, but I can’t understand the hostility here to anonymous sources.

Do you really want the next Watergate to go unnoticed because the whistleblowers can’t protect their identity? The next My Lai? The next Abu Ghraib? The next Iran-Contra?

Gov’t officials have a deeply ingrained sense of self-preservation which trumps doing the right thing almost every time. They’ll have little motivation to talk without the protection of anonymity.

And you’re being shortsighted. Sure, you hate seeing anonymity being used against the president and war you support. But, eventually, there will be a president or a party in charge which you detest.

Since corruption finds a happy home in both parties, by denying anonymous sources for now and the future, you’ll have a much smaller chance of bringing down the corruption in some future Democrat regime.

Of course, if you want your MSM to become the equivalent of Pravda, always cheering on the gov’t and only reporting the ‘good news’, then the breaking of anonymity will help bring your desire to fruition.

By: PBRMan

PBRMan — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 23:55:48 +0000

Bostonian–Miller undoubtedly made promises of confidentiality to any number of people to whom he spoke, and received this “dramatic” last-minute personal waiver from some one of them. It does not follow at all that this person believes himself to be the “source” of anything unlawful–he is simply a person who spoke with Miller, and who did so in a conversation about which the prosecutor now wants to question Miller. Miller has not said, “I refuse to disclose who it was who committed a crime in his conversation with me”; he has said, “I refuse to disclose who I talked to.”

By: Bostonian

Bostonian — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 20:56:58 +0000

PRBMan,

Then to whom did Miller make this personal promise?

***

The whole thing is just silly, and I agree, she’s gonna milk it for all it’s worth.

I loathe the Exempt Media.

By: PBRMan

PBRMan — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 15:20:56 +0000

I think there is a distinct possibility that no one has stepped forward to say “I am the source” because no one believes himself to be “the source.” I get the impression that there was a lot of published information, e.g. the fact that Wilson’s wife was Plame, and a lot of common knowledge, e.g. the fact that Plame worked at Langley. Lots of reporters wanted to know why on earth Wilson had been sent to Niger, and lots of people in the White House and elsewhere in the administration responded to questons from a number of these reporters. The reporters, being enterprising folks and having at their disposal such tools as Google, connected a series of dots. I doubt that there is anyone, anywhere, who said to a reporter, “Wilson was sent by his wife, Valerie Plame, who is an undercover CIA operative.”

By: Sandy P

Sandy P — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 05:42:51 +0000

Ohhh, I should have read further:

Kelo, anyone?

…Shortly after the Malloch Brown decision, sources claim that Sevan had decided to take a “vacation” back in Cyprus. Though the U.N. veteran claimed his legal bills created a “great financial strain,” NewsMax has confirmed that Sevan does own several valuable real estate properties in Manhattan and Long Island worth substantially more than $500,000. It is not clear whether the U.S. government or his lawyers might move against those holdings if Sevan does not return to the U.S. Cyprus has no formal extradition agreement with the United States….

By: Sandy P

Sandy P — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 05:38:42 +0000

Don’t knock Fitzgerald, he’s cleaning up IL.

Non-partisan, formerly from NYC.

—

Oh, Roger!

Guess who’s left town?

Via Rantburg:

http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=123333&D=2005-07-06&HC=1

U.N. Oil-for-Food Figure Benon Sevan Flees U.S.

Stewart Stogel, NewsMax.com

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Benon V. Sevan, former director of the scandal-plagued Oil-for-Food Program, has left his home in New York and is now in his native Cyprus, say U.N. officials.

Sevan returned to his family home in the city of Nicosia in early June, and though he insists he will return to New York, he has refused to give any date….

By: Luther McLeod

Luther McLeod — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 04:57:51 +0000

Well Rick, I have mixed feelings about term limits, while fully agreeing with you on Lord Acton’s dictum. But regardless of how long they serve I don’t have mixed feelings about our politicians working for the common good. About setting an example of how a good citizen should behave, with integrity, honor and a willingness to forgo their personal aggrandizement for the sake of the Country. About honoring their oath of office. About being honest with themselves and with us. It is not an impossible task, I have, many of us have, fought demons in our lives, and in the end we do it not for ourselves but for those around us and those who will follow. For we have a great love of humanity, of our fellow man, and a wish to see all live a life of peace and freedom. Once again, forgive my naivete

By: Katherine

Katherine — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 04:54:23 +0000

Rick,

I was two minds about term limits for the longest time, but came to the conclusion that this is the only practical solution if we want to start addressing the problem of political corruption. Though undoubtedly politicians would be engaged in furious ìpost-hoppingî to remain in power, eventually we could get rid them. Just look at the (former) star of Democratic Party, Gray Davis.