Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy points us back to the real unsolved conundrums in this bizarre power struggle.
And could the possibility that Plame’s cover has long been blown explain why the CIA was unconcerned about assigning a one-time covert agent to a job that had her walking in and out of CIA headquarters every day? Could it explain why the Wilsons were sufficiently indiscrete to pose in Vanity Fair, and, indeed, to permit Joseph Wilson to pen a highly public op-ed regarding a sensitive mission to which his wife – the covert agent – energetically advocated his assignment? Did they fail to take commonsense precautions because they knew there really was nothing left to protect?
We’d probably know the answers to these and other questions by now if the media had given a tenth of the effort spent manufacturing a scandal to reporting professionally on the underlying facts. And if they deigned to share with their readers and viewers all the news that’s fit to print … in a brief to a federal court.
This blog has been interested in related questions for some time.
Nobody, outside of political junkies, is paying the slightest attention to this nonsensical story. Soon, but not soon enough, it will go the way of hula hoops as a wierd bit of Americana. Heh, at least I’ll know the answer to the question if it ever comes up in a future game of Trivial Pursuit.
If McClellan would simply read from the media brief every time the so-called reporters started hounding him, they would shut up in a hurry.
The fact that he does not do so is what suggests to me that Rove should step down. It’s not that he commited any crime, or even is guilty of an ethical lapse. It’s that Rove is totally incompetent at fighting these media battles.
He’s not a very good chief of staff either.
Can anybody at the WH play this game?
http://www.moonbatcentral.com/wordpress/?p=713 is the link to another expose of the “facts: about Wilson.
No Matter.
Facts do not mean anything is this kind of political brouhaha.
What we see is daily verification of the moral vacuum in which most of the Democratic officials live.
Michelle Malkin blogged a piece today about a DUMB Republican and some remarks he made. When will we see Democrats expose the DUMB remarks of their colleagues?
I am happy to see this “scandal” go on and on, because the MSM is just digging a deeper hole for themselves. When the prosecutor’s report comes out it will be an embarrassment for the media, who already have been on six sides of the issue. Media bias still angers me (if I pass a news stand and can’t avert my eyes fast enough from LATimes headlines) but it angers me less and less as I hear about how low the public’s opinion of the media is. What I am looking for is an article or a website that tracks changes in how the public gets its news. Even though network news has the largest single audience, it seems that most people have mulitple sources, and the MSM can’t control the news anymore. Does anyone have a website that is good for this issue?
Flenser,
The one who should step down is McClellan. He is the one who has lost crediblity with the public.
His original remarks two years ago were wrong. Either people in the WH lied to him, in which case he should step down as a point of honor.
Or, he knew the facts and weasel worded his answers to the press to create a false impression. In that case he also has to step down.
TedM
Lying to the press, it thats what he did, is not an offence in my eyes. Hell, it’s a badge of honor.
But I’ll make you a deal. If all the media figures who have lied shamelessly and relentlessly for the last few years, on this issue and others, will acknowledge their culpability and resign, then I’d be willing to accept the argument that McClellan should resign also.
Flenser, \
following your argument, the press rooms and the halls of government would be ghost towns.
Flenser
Maybe the evil Rove is about to pull off the greatest rope-a-dope of all times. Perhaps he’s keeping his cards close to his chest as he lures the axis of the biased MSM, Democrats, and rogue CIA employees further out onto a limb? You must suspect that Fitzgerald’s inquiries must also be looking at the CIA for the original sin. Do you suppose Goss has been sitting still and only trying to root out incompetence, or maybe he’s also looking to see whose heads popup related to numerous partisan CIA leaks?
It’ll be interesting to see what eventually unfolds.
I am watching the press briefing on cspan.
I now think that McClellan should be given the Purple Heart.
TedM
It’s reached the point where I think reporters are less honest than politicans. Thats how bad things are.
Politicans do get voted out once in awhile. They even go to jail on occasion. When our journalists are caught making stuff up, they get to write books about. (Jayson Blair) The politicans have some accountability, the reporters have none.
Roger:
They are going ape over McClleland because that is what they have been reduced to in this press created scandal. They used their best weapons against Rove and they all misfired. They have McCllelands inconsistent statements and they are using all of their frustrated anger at a workmanlike but unspectacular press secretary. “Scott lied, People di…,er, well, got their feelings hurt.” The press went hunting and hoped to bring back a ten point Rove on the hood of their truck and have been reduced to coming back with Bambi Scott.
I am happy to see this “scandal” go on and on, because the MSM is just digging a deeper hole for themselves.
The problem with this is that things simply don’t work that way. The media is constantly exposed for the hypocritical liars that they are, but because they still control a significant portion of what gets reported and what does not get reported, the sheer repetition of the original charges ensures that the incorrect version is what will ultimately be accepted as “the truth.”
Witness “Bush Lied.” There’s one that should have died years ago, but is still trotted out as fact. There are many other examples, going back decades.
The blogosphere mitigates this to some degree, but only in the case of those that care to listen. The intellectually lazy have heard all they need to hear on the issue, and now know for a goshdarned FACT that Karl Rove “outed” a CIA agent in time of war. You know, people like these:
http://shortfinal.blogspot.com/2005/07/support-our-troops-bring-them-home.html
MaDr
I don’t buy the rope-a dope theory. It looks a lot more as if the WH simply cannot do any good PR. They have a good case to make, the facts are on their side, yet they constantly allow their opponents to define the issue.
This has been their weakeness for the entire Bush presidency, and I would really like to see a shakeup aimed at addressing it.
Small correction. Andrew Card is the Chief of Staff. Karl Rove is Assistant to the President, Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor.
I find the MSM-bashing so amusing, particularly since it is the MSM that is publicizing the leaks from Luskin and others of info. that could be exculpatory for Rove.
Still, as various people have said, it’s all up to Fitzgerald, and no one really knows what he knows. I remain hopeful, as a liberal democrat, that we can nail Rove — but the fact is that that’s not going to happen unless he really did something wrong, and then tried to cover it up. And it won’t be the MSM or the DNC firing him, it’ll be our Commander-In-Chief Himself.
This article by Laurence O’Donnell still seems relevant: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/lawrence-odonnell/the-one-very-good-reason-_3769.html
Final sentence: “All the judges who have seen the prosecutor?s secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment.”
I take this story as a positive sign. Once you know that the press will do their very best to hurt Bush, another thought pops into your head: Is this the best story that they can pick, and the best they can do with it? If so, I’d say that the press is really hurting right now.
On the effects, I’ll say that they are slow but persistent. It is *hard* to convince someone that trusts the press that the press is not trustworthy. However, this very difficulty means that once a person becomes convinced, they stay that way. Trust in the UN works the same way. The Dems only wish they had that kind of rachet effect with their causes.
Perhaps the ‘serious crime’ is related to the recent “outing” of the CIA’s secret airline by the NY Times. That would be real justice, IMHO.
Steven’s right–this sort of kerfuffle ain’t gonna turn any voters toward the Dems. Those who pay no attention to the idea that Bush & co aren’t monsters are already there, and those that do have open minds will have heard enough of these sorts of scandals to know by now that the manufacturing of scandals is the actual scandal.
James Lewis thinks the event that started it all “was a publicity stunt from the get-go”.
And why would the CIA need a “useful stick”?
And why is the CIA getting such able assistance from the usual suspects?
As far as I’m concerned, it’s as good an explanation as any.
Any White House worth its salt will have a pipeline into federal grand jury proceedings. My guess is the Bushies know exactly where this investigation is headed and so continues to uncoil the rope. What the dopes do with it is their business.
I hope Fitzgerald wraps it up soon so we can get back to important things like the Downing St memos.
This has been their weakeness for the entire Bush presidency, and I would really like to see a shakeup aimed at addressing it.
Flenser, using what medium would the WH make your good PR effort? NYT, WaPo, LAT, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, AP, Reuters, Al-Jazeera?
Thankfully we have WSJ, FoxNews, and the Internet. The thinking people here have a pretty good idea of what’s going on without the need of the WH trying to counter the hate America spin from these other groups.
Markus:
You are right, Fitzgerald is being extremely careful and is tracking down every lead. And you are also correct in saying that no one knows for sure what really happened, at least not yet.
But those accurate statements does not mean that it is Rove who did it. Could Rove be guilty? Sure, smart people do dumb things and then cover it up all the time. The problem that many on the left and the press are having are using those accurate statements and then making the conclusion that they prove that Rove is the one. And they are using those leaps of faith and telling President Bush that he is somehow acting in a improper manner by not jumping on their bandwagon until the actual facts are established.
It could be Rove. It could be members of the media. It could be someone in the C.I.A. It could Joe “literary flair” Wilson. The Cooper memo’s. and the other assorted leaks from Grand Jury testimoney do not implicate Rove or substansiate the various Rove is guilty scenarios that the press has floated out.
Howard Feinman has put out the latest novel treatment. This was Rove striking back at Wilson, this was his war plan against Wilson. On the stories that we know so far the press called Rove. Rove didn’t bring up Wilson, the press did. Wilson wrote an op-ed, the Press said, Well Karl, how do explain the fact that VP Cheney sent Rove to Niger, didn’t like Wilsons report that proves Iraq didn’t contact Niger for yellowcake, and then had the President lie about it anyway.
So Rove tells Cooper, hey, don’t buy into this timeshare your going to lose your shirt. Cheney didn’t suggest or have anything to do with sending Wilson to Niger. In fact his wife, who works at the C.I.A. (notice there is nothing mentioned about her covert nature and thus no illegal activity) who had more to do with his appointment. In the further viscous personel attacks on Wilson the administration pointed out that his report actually confirms that Iraq approached Niger nad that Niger officials assumed it was yellowcake because they didn’t think Iraq was fishing for chickpea’s. “Ah, but Wilson has proved that Iraq never purchased yellowcake from n
Niger” Well, thats true but no one ever claimed that the purchase went thru so that is a fact that proves nothing. Oh, and by the way, contrary to Wilson’s claims, his report was never given to the White House so Wilson’s claim that he knew the major players had all seen it and were ignoring it because it didn’t fit into their plans.
So Rove is launching a personel partisan attack against Wilson because they had the gaul to point out the falsehoods in Wilsons partisan attack against the White House. What nerve!. The press asks them to explain the serious charges that Wilson launched against the White House, the White house tells the press that Wilson is full of it (and the White House version is shown to be true, and Wilson’s largely false by the bi-partisan congressional report) and it is Rove who is the bad guy. Neat logic.
Could more facts come tumbling out? sure. But as of now Schumer and the rest of of the Dems have nothing but speculation and wishful thinking to pin on Rove. They may have enough to get McClelland fired, which is fine with me, I have never been that impressed with him anyway. The case against Rove is nothing and the fact that Fitzgerald is still working does not mean that the target is Rove.
Kevin Peters
John Hinderaker speaks of MSM reporting in l’affaire Plame as “journalist malpractice”. He’s right.
The real issues about outing a cover agent are 1) knowledge of the covert status and most importantly, 2) intent of blowing the cover.
The questions then are:
1) If Ms. Plame’s cover was so deep, and outing her identity so dangerous, why did Wilson allow her maiden name to be posted on his internet bio at the Middle East Institute in 2002 where it was available in July 2003 at the time of his Op-Ed in the NYT?
http://eyeontheworld.typepad.com/home/2005/07/wilson_was_the_.html
2) Given the established public nature of her maiden name documented above, why didn’t Wilson think that writing an Op-ed about the CIA and her subject matter expertise in the NYT and then giving public interviews about it could plausibly increase the risk (even if it was only marginally) to her job, her cover and potentially her life?
3) Given that he was so casual about making very public statements related to his wife’s field of expertise and place of employment, it would be logical for any rational observer to conclude that Wilson had a lackadaisical attitude to protecting any subjects related to her wife’s job. Thus the questions are, would any rational husband in the world do anything public that would create ANY risk, even minimal risk, to his wife’s job and potentially her life? Would anyone even think that a husband would be so reckless?
4) Thus, knowing this information, why would any other rational person, regardless of position, when learning about her place of employment would even think or speculate that her CIA employment was of a covert nature or that there would be any sort of risk associated with mentioning it?
RE John Hinderaker
The quality of the reporting on the Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story has been appalling. It raises in stark form the question whether “mainstream” reporters get facts wrong because they are ill-informed, or because they are counting on their readers being ill-informed.
With all due to respect to Hinderaker, I really do not that that is even an open question. Of course they count on their readers being ill-informed. They are the ones who ill-inform them.
The White House brings these problems on its own head with its supine response to media malpractice. News organizations which fabricate news should have their press passes revoked, period. This means showing the NY Times, CBS, and some others the door. Yes, they will scream and howl if this is done. So what?
The custom of granting these entities the right to come to the White House and ask questions is a matter of habit. They have no more “right” to do so than I do.
Ted M.:
“Politicans do get voted out once in awhile. They even go to jail on occasion. When our journalists are caught making stuff up, they get to write books about. (Jayson Blair) The politicans have some accountability, the reporters have none.”
Be of good cheer. People are voting….with their remotes and by cancelling their subscriptions. The numbers for the MSM continue to decline; this incident should further damage what’s left of their credibility.
I have heard some people get onto Scott McClellan or Karl Rove for not coming out with more information now. However, when they say they can’t talk about it now, that really is the truth.
One thing that is so weird about this whole thing is that the people who are the most outraged by the socalled leak are the biggest leakers themselves. The press and the Democrats never shut up. They never wait for the facts. It is just yak yak yak with these people.
And so far the most incompetent people are the CIA. Who hired this blonde bombshell in the first place? I would have taken her clearance away from her when she married Wilson.
classified smassified, they could care less and there they are climbing all over a miserable McClellan because he actually refuses to talk about this while there is a grand jury investigation going on.
Watching Schumer makes me think of Eddie Haskell on the old Leave it to Beaver shows.
Hello Mrs. Cleaver, you look lovely this evening. I tried to tell Wally that would not be appropriate Mrs. Cleaver.
smarmy backstabbing oppurtunists.
Ed P
“The thinking people here have a pretty good idea of what’s going on ..”
And what proportion of the electorate do we constitute?
“All the judges who have seen the prosecutor?s secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment.”
Are judges supposed to reveal this kind of thing,if not who leaked it?
Flenser: Oh about 52%. Regards
Roger:
I just had to check out boy reagan and he was wondering if Scott McCllelan could be brought up on obstruction of justice charges because of his press conference statements. They are so pathetic and desperate. They have to know how moronic they sound. His father was lucky that he didn’t have to see what his namesake has turned into. A bottom feeding political gossip and a bad one at that.
Kevin Peters
Kevin:
Obstruction of justice? Does this fool even know what that means?
I don’t think we even know if McClellan was wrong. Who really knows at this point? Maybe when the questions were asked he gave what he thought were truthful answers and maybe we will find they were.
John Kerry blew a CIA’s agent on the floor of the Senate back when they were dissecting Bolton and nobdoy gave a damn. Now we are trying to parse this poor bastard’s words for obstruction of justice because the press corps does not like what he said. screw them.
Ed P
And that fact that half the country believes things that aren’t true does not bother you?
This is hardly an acedemic matter. The reason we are tiptoeing around with the terrorists, obsessing over whether we are hurting their feelings, is to assuage the other half of the country. Bush lacks the political capital to properly prosocute the war, (for example, punitive raids into Syria, or a strike against Irans reactor) because half the country has been persuaded that he lied us into Iraq.
If that 52% were 75%, which it ought to be, the range of possibilites open to us would be much larger, the discussion of what to do next much different.
We should all pitch in and buy Scott a cold sixer of his favorite brew. They can’t possibly be paying him enough for having to stand up to his neck in arrogant morons all day.
Incidentally, Valerie Plame has broken her silence!
Terrye:
This is how the media works. You pick a target, you keep throwing garbage at them until something sticks. Your first load of crap is proven wrong, no problem, you just try another line of attack. But it is all filed under “the Rove C.I.A. leak.” Notice that even though, with the facts that we know at this moment, Rove seems to not be the source of the leak he is still the lead of every story. It’s the Rove story. But Rove seems not to be the source. Tough. he is the poster boy and he is the front man even if the facts seem to point elsewhere. Of course boy reagan knows nothing about law, politics or anything else. But he knows how to throw up baseless accusations that are supported by nothing and act as if they are serious questions.
This is nothing but over the fence gossip dressed up as serious journalism. The Rove material wasn’t working well so you toss in the meaningless McClleand press conference transcripts and pretend this is the smoking gun.It might be important if you were writing a book on Press Secratries but as far as the “scandal” goes it is pretty slim pickings.
Boy Reagan had a couple of lawyers who have worked on special investigations and asked this brilliant question. This is not verbatim but this was the general thrust “Why didn’t President Bush save us all this trouble and just get everyone in the same room and find out what happened?” One of the lawyers was trying to help the schmuck and gently pointed out that by getting all the principles in one room would look like the crooks trying to get their story straight and would probably be seen as possible obstruction of justice. Boy Reagan just gave the ‘oh really” facial expression he uses when an adult explains the real world to him and went on to the next banality.
The press sets up a boundry, then when it doesn’t pan out for them just changes the line. The current flexible princeple is “well, he probably didn’t break the law, from what we know he may not be the source, but when will he become a political liability and how long will it be until Bush fires Rove. It won’t be long before we have Nightline starting of their show with Day 14, The Karl Rove resignation watch.
Let me wrap up my screed before my head explodes. Press makes charges. Charges look like they are wrong, as far as they know. Continue to act as if they are true. Continue to make it a big story even though there is nothing new to prove the original charges. Then say that the political firestorm that they lit is the reason that Rove should go. This is MSM logic. I don’t know for sure, Rove could have done something. But the press doesn’t know either but they act like they do. If you don’t have the goods, fake it, it all sounds the same if your hairdo is hot.
Kevin Peters
Kevin:
Well I don’t know but I watched Brit Hume tonight and he said there was a poll out [?] that showed Bush’s honesty numbers had taken a hit.
On one hand I don’t think much of polls and on the other I think the constant ragging does take a toll after awhile.
The ridiculus thing is the only person we know for sure lied was Joe Wilson and so far he is free as a little birdie.
I resent the press trying to undo an election. And Democrats might get a kick out of this but the next time these idiots decide to go after someone he or she might have a D behind their name.
Terrye:
Unless something else comes out Rove will keep his job. The media is trying to create a MSM storm to bum rush Rove out of office. Bush isn’t Clinton and is not a finger to the political winds kind of guy. Rove will resign if he thinks this is dragging Bush’s agenda down. Bush has shown that if he thinks he is doing the right thing he doesn’t worry whether or not the assorted chattering classes don’t approve.
This will go on for the next month or two but even the MSM will run out of ways to repackage the facts that tend to exonerate Rove and try to say, no, this means he is guilty. But they will keep trying. If nothing else comes out and Fitzgerald issues indictments of other people then Rove, the White House will assemble a nice collection of the Rove is guilty mush of the press and counter attack.
Kevin Peters
Slightly off topic, but on the matter of integrity…
today is the 36th anniversary of Ted Kennedy killing Mary Jo Kopechne in an act of drunken philandery, when he drove her off the Chappaquiddick Bridge and left her to drown.
If you want to congratulate the Senator on this milestone…
http://kennedy.senate.gov
Richard,
I’m sure something can de done with the Bobby Gentry song http://www.amiright.com/misheard/artist/gentrybobbie.shtml
Fun bunch!
Poor gals. Both of ‘em, Mary Jo and Joan. Poor us, citizens with the Senator.
richard mcenroe
[T]oday is the 36th anniversary of Ted Kennedy killing Mary Jo Kopechne in an act of drunken philandery, when he drove her off the Chappaquiddick Bridge and left her to drown…
That summer I happened to be working on Chappaquiddick Island. Just out of college, and just before starting medical school, I worked for a summer as a sort of water safety and water-skiing instructor, butler and handyman for a wealthy New Hampshire family who had a summer home on the island. We were awakened early that morning by news that, in my employer’s words, “Something terrible has happened to Senator Kennedy down at the Dike Bridge.”
These people were Democrats (as was I at the time) so all their concern was about the dear senator. (I know, I’m being harsh.)
As it happened I knew the Dike Bridge very well. I fished there and on the adjacent beach for bluefish regularly. So I knew Kennedy was lying through his teeth when he told Police Chief Dominick Arena:
[Emphasis mine]
There was ample history that Kennedy was quite familiar with the roads in question. And the “hard right” he made “by mistake” was off a well-paved road onto a graded road, and even somebody who was blind (or blind drunk) could not have made that “mistake.”
Anyway, I was ordered by my employer, Dr. Sands, to drive one of his two Land Rovers (he had Land Rovers in 1969!) so that the winch on the front end could be used to haul Kennedy’s vehicle from the water.
But by the time we got there, the car had already been pulled out by a tow truck, and poor Mary Jo’s corpse had been taken to Edgartown.
Kennedy is a liar and in my judgment he is a very evil man.
Jamie Irons
That’s a give-you-the-shudders post, there, Jamie.
I saw the Bloomberg duo interviewed on Charlie Rose this evening. I think they are hoping to shop for screen writers very soon for their life stories about their courageous and stellar journalistic work while still being able to look handsome. Call it Woodward and Bernstein Visit Brooks Brothers! They have been talking to “sources” close to the grand jury, and suggest that Fitzgerald is interested in memos prepared by the State Dept. that indicated Plame’s role and that Rove *might* have seen them and thus *might* have perjured himself during testimony, although they don’t know what he said during his testimony.
They paint every ambiguity to look bad for the White House and try to suggest that Wilson’s credibility might not even be at stake as he might not have known the full story of his wife’s role until all this came out and the former Niger prime minister said that the Iraqis never mentioned uranium. In speaking about Wilson, they create a new level to the phrase “giving someone the benefit of the doubt.” They are licking their lips, hoping to score big.
Also this dynamic duo and Cooper (who was interviewed earlier) are curious why the White House wanted to discredit what Wilson said, since they had already indicated that the President shouldn’t have said those 16 words. So why were they so upset with Wilson, since he was just saying the same thing?! The reporters act like they haven’t been conscious for the last three years and suddenly woke up with this peculiar story they were assigned to investigate. Cooper claims that he didn’t even know Wilson had a wife until Rove told him (I also wondered if he knew that Niger was a country before someone told him that too).
This will be a story until Fitzgerald comes out with something or nothing. Very many in the MSM have set this up as The Press vs. the President (with poor Judy Miller and her health problems in jail because of evil Bush McChimphitler). So they are gonna “get him”. Win one for the Jipper. MSM is hoping for Arms for Hostages II. Maybe we’ll find out that the White House had been in secret communications with al Qaeda offering to please take Joe Wilson off our hands, only to be rebuffed since they considered him to already be working for their side.
The Bloomberg reporters continue to go by the story that Plame’s cover was blown by this, although even the reporters are saying that it is unlikely that there will be any criminal charges filed under that 1982 law that started the whole thing. Cooper, in a candid moment, has considered the possibility that the whole thing might fizzle out with nothing to show for it. Investigative reporters that are guided by wishful thinking tend to leave out a lot from their work.
OT
Setting the Plame farce aside for a moment, the move to have laws based on race rather than territory continues to make progress, if thats the right term.
A law is moving forward which would create a “new race-based government would have jurisdiction over 20 percent of Hawaii’s citizens as well as 400,000 citizens nationwide.”
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/Chapman20050623.shtml
Can blacks and Hispanics be far behind?
Flenser:
Here is another from the stupid idea’s book. The Dems keep losing national elections. Re-examine their ideas? Nah. From a New York Times magazine writer comes the latest if you can’t win, change the rules so you can. His proposal was to change the voting districts that are arranged by geography and set them by Income levels instead. You can’t sell class warfare to the people so force them to vote in class warfare blocks.
Kevin Peters
KevinPeters ó Whereupon the Dems would find out that there really are fewer lefty billionaires and welfare proles in this country than they thought. It had to be a Manhattanite who came up with that idea, No one else is quite that insular, even Parisians.
Andy McCarthy’s article lays to rest the notion that this scandal is some kind of Rove rope a dope. The MSM know the facts and refuse to print them. This operation is the same old repeat a lie often enough and “most” people will tend to believe it.
I hope they keep it up. This has been a common tactic of our beloved MSM since Ronald Reagan. At least that was when I noticed that the MSM stories didn’t coincide with reality. The MSM thinks they are winning but I think they are insane. They keep doing the same thing even though it doesn’t work. More and more people will realize the MSM lies.
I guess there’s nothing to do except wait for the MSM dinosaurs to expire in their own good time. Flenser’s idea of denying a few newspapers or TV networks access to the White House press conferences wouldn’t work. Would not change one thing from the current situation. Nope, you don’t need a press conference to make up stuff.
klrfz1
It all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Revoking WH press passes from these people is not going to automatically cause them to start reporting the news honestly. But it might establish a seperation between the serious press, if any exists, and the muck-raking press.
We have always had yellow journalism in this counrty, all the way back to its founding. The notion that it’s perpetrators have the right to use the White House as a theater for their games is a recent one.
Having the press secretary attempt to answer their questions (actually political screeds thinly disguised as questions), gives the press a veneer of credibility it does not deserve.
And in today’s episode of “Immune to Irony”:
From the Associated Press:
CNN: Novak’s status unchanged.
Journalist Robert Novak’s status as a CNN contributor will remain unaffected during a federal probe into the revelation of a CIA officer’s identity, executives at the news channel say.
“I think we’re all aware that no one really knows what’s going on in the investigation of the Valerie Plame incident,” said Jonathan Klein, President of CNN/US. “So it would be awfully presumptuous of us to take steps against a guy in his career based on second-, third-, fourth-hand reporting.”