MATT WELCH CONTINUES in his role as scourge of the ombudsmen.

VICTORY BY THE NUMBERS? Dale Amon says we’re winning. Within the context of the overly-narrow concept of victory involved, I think he’s right.

I’VE GOT MORE ON THE MEDIA AND IRAQ over at GlennReynolds.com — a post that I wrote in the lovely Starbucks-catered “Study Room” in the University’s main library. Free wi-fi, overstuffed chairs, and foamy cappucino. Today’s students have it pretty good.

CNN called to ask if I’d debate this topic on Paula Zahn’s show tonight, but I suggested that they call Jeff Jarvis or Jay Rosen instead. I haven’t heard back, so I guess one or the other will be on (8:30 ET, I think), no doubt doing a better job than I would have.

UPDATE: They wound up with John Leo, who seemed to me to be too much of a gentleman in his dealings with Michael Wolff of New York magazine, who was the classic TV Shouting Head, interrupting and spouting non sequiturs. The result was that the show — which the producers wanted to be conflict-ridden so as to produce excitement — was actually quite dull, and very little that was new got said. That’s too bad, as the topic was important — but in a way, the formula, and its failure, illustrates the point.

COULD ROBERT NOVAK BE FORCED TO REVEAL HIS SOURCES? Yes, writes Eugene Volokh. Volokh is more of a First Amendment expert than I am — I teach it, and I’ve written a couple of articles, but he’s got a well-regarded book — but I agree with his analysis.

UPDATE: Am I serious? Why not? Subpoena him and the other reporters. Find out what happened. If somebody leaked, fire ’em. It’s easy and it’s fast, and it’s legal. What’s wrong with this idea? Why have a special rule for the press? Who else is allowed to go around saying that they have knowledge of a crime but won’t talk?

You can’t have a special rule on this for journalists, because journalists don’t have special First Amendment rights, and anyway everyone is a journalist now, thanks to the Internet. This will be disturbing to professional journalists, but I don’t see an alternative. And this is a national security leak, in wartime, right?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Surprisingly little negative reaction to the above. Except for this. Heh.

THE REAL WILSON SCANDAL: Forget Valerie Plame, the big scandal is why anyone in the Bush Administration would ever have tasked a guy with Wilson’s views with an important mission.

Regardless of the rest of the story, heads should roll for that.

UPDATE: Darren Kaplan wonders if Wilson’s hiring was legal in light of anti-nepotism laws. I don’t know, but surely his publicly expressed views made him unsuitable regardless of his relations.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Randy Paul emails to suggest that I’m “smearing” Wilson above. But it’s an attack on the competence of the White House, not on Wilson. Wilson’s free to hold those views. But only an idiot would pick someone like that for a politically sensitive mission of great importance. Either (1) Wilson had a sudden epiphany on the war, which I strongly doubt; or (2) He felt this way when they picked him, and they either didn’t know (bad) or didn’t care (bad). Regardless, this reflects very badly on the White House’s judgment. And unlike other parts of this affair, we don’t need additional facts to figure it out.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Simon agrees:

Who were the Adminstration leakers but, more importantly, who in the CIA authorized Wilson’s strange, off-budget, journey to Niger and why? Why is this more important? Because it could show people in our own intelligence agencies working against the wishes of our government, not just standard-issue partisan battling that goes on every day inside the Beltway.

Indeed.

COLBY COSH is right to condemn this latest bit of drug-war stupidity.

IS THE SENATE UNDERMINING IRAQI RECONSTRUCTION? Sure looks like it.

If things go badly as a result, I promise to publish the pictures, names — and home phone numbers, if I can get ’em — of the Senators voting for this bill.

I’ll also publish weblinks so that people can give money to their opponents, regardless of party. This is near-criminal stupidity.

DAVE KOPEL WRITES that Arnold Schwarzenegger reveals his ignorance of gun laws when he talks about the subject. He appears, in fact, to be shaky on the state/federal distinction.

MORE ON THE HUGO CHAVEZ / TERRORIST CONNECTIONS:

Middle Eastern terrorist groups are operating support cells in Venezuela and other locations in the Andean region. A two-month review by U.S. News, including interviews with dozens of U.S. and Latin American sources, confirms the terrorist activity. In particular, the magazine has learned that thousands of Venezuelan identity documents are being distributed to foreigners from Middle Eastern nations, including Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, and Lebanon.

No big surprise, to those who have been paying attention.

UPDATE: Winds of Change’s Latin America roundup has more on Chavez.

I WAS WONDERING ABOUT THE IRAQI OIL TRUST IDEA, and this WSJ editorial contains the following nugget:

Plans are also well under way to give all Iraqis a stake in the success of their new society through the creation of an oil trust, some of which would go to fund public goods like education and some of which would be paid out directly to individuals on a regular basis (in a version of the Alaska oil trust). That strikes us as an enlightened way to show Iraqis that they have a stake in this transition to self-rule.

I’d like to read more about this.

UPDATE: Well, in the paper edition of the Wall Street Journal, there’s a bit more, in the form of an oped by Fareed Yasseen. He’s critical of the oil trust idea, on the plausible grounds that (1) it’s a disincentive to work; and (2) it will, in effect, enhance the power of patriarchs and clan leaders.

These are plausible objections, though I don’t know if they should carry the day. But that I’m reading about this — really important — stuff on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal and not in news accounts that instead stress the latest pinprick attack by Saddam’s holdouts (and miss the real story even there) simply illustrates what a dreadful job the press is doing in reporting what’s going on in Iraq.

Yasseen also thinks that Bremer is pushing privatization too fast. This is a real issue. In a place like Iraq, there are two kinds of people likely to be able to buy privatized assets: Baathist leftovers and collaborators, and foreigners. Both pose problems — though the Iraqi expatriate community, which I think should be given preferential treatment, is a different kettle of fish.

Again, why isn’t this kind of stuff getting the above-the-fold treatment? Because it matters.

ANOTHER UPDATE: John Weidner thinks Iraq needs a good dose of federalism, along the Swiss model. Are they talking about it in Iraq?

I’d like to know.

DANIEL DREZNER HAS MORE on Wilson/Plame, and quotes some pretty strong words from The Note about prejudgement.

Meanwhile Howard Kurtz notes that the press isn’t looking too good, and quotes a reader:

“Do the reporters, Andrea Mitchell and five others, who were contacted by the two ‘Bush senior administartion officials’ have any obligations to these sources since they did not report the story about Joseph Wilson’s wife? Would it be unethical for them to comment about which ‘Bush senior administration officials’ contacted them about stories that were not reported?”

“Why is it that lower echelon reporters like Jayson Blair at the New York Times get fired for plagiarism, but at the same time syndicated columnists like Robert Novak, and by complicity Fred Hiatt, your editorial page director, can destroy a career and risk a life with impunity?”

It is a bit odd to see journalists running around pronouncing a scandal and — by implication, and sometimes explicitly — calling for an investigation when they know the truth and won’t report it. Isn’t it? And Roger Simon is worried:

If you think I’m wrong, just reflect for a second on all the yelling and screaming about this matter that appeared in the media and on the Internet yesterday, and from politicians of course, before any of them knew the facts. Imagine what will happen when they think they do.

I think that was what The Note was getting at, too.

WESLEY CLARK ON TIME TRAVEL: I’m with him on this. And against the critics I invoke Clarke’s (not Clark’s) Law.

On the other hand, there’s still Niven’s Law to contend with.

(more…)

SPINSANITY says that ad hominem attacks on Ashcroft are unfair, but widespread among Democrats.

I don’t think that ad hominem attacks on Ashcroft are inherently unfair: when you have an executive official of power and discretion, questions of character matter. (Ad hominem arguments may be logically invalid, but that’s a different topic.) The real problem with the attacks on Ashcroft — whom I don’t especially like myself, to be honest — is that they’re absurdly over the top. He’s not Torquemada, pace Walter Cronkite. He’s not even Janet Reno, whose record on civil liberties was dreadful but who got a pass because she was a woman appointed by a Democrat.

In fact, what’s interesting is that Democrats can — and Clinton did — get away with far worse civil liberties assaults, while Republicans can (and Bush is) get away with spending far more money, because the pigeonholes used by the press include “Republicans who hate civil liberties” and “Democrats who are wasteful spenders,” but not the reverse.

WOULD ARNOLD BE GOOD FOR SILICON VALLEY? Beats me. But Sonia Arrison has some thoughts.

VIA JOHN ELLIS, here’s another article on outsourcing, featuring a list of jobs most and least at risk. Ellis thinks that health care will be the big issue of 2004, but I think that this will have a lot of traction, too — especially among voters who tend Republican, but who might be lured away by Democrats over this issue.

ROB SMITH had better never go to Indonesia.

Me, I want a country that offers tax breaks for oral sex, not jail time.

Note to 2004 presidential candidates: here’s your winning issue!

THIS JUST IN: DUCT TAPE IS GOOD FOR EVERYTHING — except, apparently, sealing ducts.

STEVEN DEN BESTE HAS A LENGTHY POST on Iraqi reconstruction that’s worth reading: “We will eliminate our enemies not by killing them in hordes, but by infecting them with ideas which will convert most of them to friends. That process has now begun.”

DRIVING WHILE TIRED — NOW A CRIME IN NEW JERSEY. I agree with the commenter who says: “This is further proof of my theory that any law named after a person is a bad law.”

REPORTERS ENDANGERING IRAQI CHILDREN:

The missiles are filled with volatile rocket fuel and two hundred kilograms of high explosives. Locals fear their children could be injured or their homes destroyed by these deadly weapons.
– ABC TV News, 19 August 2003

Gina Wilkinson: Mr Saadi?
– Yes.
Gina Wilkinson: Can we get these two kids to walk around underneath the missile?
Just around it?
– Mohammad. Mohammad.
Gina Wilkinson: And this one?
– (trans) Come here. Go up there. Go with him. Casually, casually. Walk behind him. Go with him. . . .

You want to show the children on there?
Gina Wilkinson: Yeah, that would be good. Yeah, if they don’t mind.
– (trans) You want them to stand over there to be filmed?
– (trans) Come on sweetie. What’s her name?
– Noona
– (trans) I’m worried about them.
– Sit. Sit on this.
– (trans) I’m worried about them.
– (trans) Sit on the edge.

Gina Wilkinson: Please God, don’t let this thing explode now.
– ABC Camera Tape

This is the Australian equivalent to the BBC (in more ways than one!) not the American Broadcasting Company.

UPDATE: Tim Blair: “I clearly underestimated the ABC’s willingness to harm kids.”

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH thinks that the air is going out of the Plame/Wilson affair as Robert Novak says it wasn’t leaked by the Administration.

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner is skeptical, too, if not quite as skeptical as Pejman.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader sends this link to a story from July in which Novak seems to say that someone called him with the information, which would seem to contradict what he’s saying now. So which Novak is telling the truth? The July Novak or the September Novak? (Is either?) Say, maybe his source was George Tenet. . . .

Maybe they should just subpoena Novak. Although Peter Jennings said tonight that courts have consistently held that journalists don’t have to disclose their sources, that’s not true. Novak has no more right to refuse to testify about a crime than anyone else does.

Yeah, I know, that’s probably a non-starter. But that’s because of the political power of the Journalists’ Guild, not because of the First Amendment.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader who says he’s a former CIA employee sends this:

Regarding Pejman Yousefzadeh’s analysis of the Plame/Wilson issue, I thought some information from a former CIA analyst might be useful.

I was an analyst at the CIA from 1990-92 working in the Directorate of Intelligence (DI). I was in training for the first year and some of my colleagues were training to be case officers in the Directorate of Operations (DO: the real spies). As a result, my colleagues from the DI and the Directorates of Science & Technology and Administration (DS&T, DA) and I were required to be undercover. The idea was not to blow the cover of the DO folks by association with us during training.

Once I completed my training, I was allowed to drop my cover and be an overt employee. Other DI, DS&T and DA officers chose to maintain their covers. Some DI officers do that so it’s easier to go overseas on Agency business–in which case you travel under cover. Others do it to preserve the option to return to a covert role.

My point is that Valerie Plame, while not in the DO or a traditional covert role, might still indeed have been under cover. On the other hand, the CIA spokesperson that asked Mr. Novak not to use her name may have been operating under standard procedures: CIA officers are encouraged–even if overt employees–to avoid revealing their employment. It helps reduce the chances of being targeted by opposing intelligence services or being the target of terrorist attacks (as happened in 1993 outside the Agency’s gates).

Hope that helps. In keeping with standard procedures (even 11 years later!), please withhold my name.

I have friends who were non-covert types at the CIA, and they do tend to keep that quiet. Eric Kolchinsky has more on this subject.

Meanwhile Mark Kleiman writes that Pejman is wrong, in the item cited above, though weirdly Kleiman also seems to think that this post is my first on the Plame/Wilson affair, which it’s not. In fact, I’ve even linked to Mark on this before. And there’s this rather long post (1,860 words) from yesterday, too. If this is a “wall of silence,” Mark, well. . . .

Unfortunately, that aspect of Kleiman’s post, like the excessive gleefulness and point-scoring of the anti-Bush bloggers in general on this topic, only serves to make this matter look more political, and less serious, than it perhaps is. More and more, these guys remind me of the anti-Clinton fanatics of the 1990s. Which doesn’t necessarily make them wrong, any more than the anti-Clinton fanatics were always wrong. It just makes them a lot less persuasive. (Kleiman also quotes Drezner’s earlier post on this, but not his more recent, and more skeptical, one linked above. Perhaps he missed that one, too, but you shouldn’t, as it offers some perspective.)

Helpfully, Henry Hanks emails:

Actually a close reading of Novak’s statement doesn’t really contradict what he’s saying now…

“I didn’t dig it out, it was given to me,” he said. “They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.”

versus:

Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson’s report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.

He never said he was called. The article says, without quoting Novak, that they came to him, which cannot be inferred from his words.

Hmm. Stay tuned, as we keep saying. (Hanks has more, here). One sure-fire prediction: some people will wish the Independent Counsel law hadn’t been repealed, before this is all over.

And in a surprise come-from-behind move, Megan McArdle, who already said something like that, wins the pundit-of-the-week award with this McLaughlin-worthy item:

Question of the day: is the Plame affair good or bad for Wesley Clark?

You’ll have to follow the link to find out. And there’s lots of good stuff, generally, on this and related topics at Tom Maguire’s blog — he’s been covering this for some time.

MORE: Reader Ed Paul emails:

I may have missed this but I have not seen anyone compare the Wilson matter to the disclosure of Linda Tripps personnel and medical records by her boss in DOD to the media. Although it could be argued that revealing a spy’s identity is more serious, both cases involved allegations of a Federal felony. A Justice Department investigation just kind of petered out even thought the guy (Bacon?) admitted enough in public to at least create probable cause. I have too much Clinton scar tissue to be outraged at the hypocrisy but some Democrats ought to at least be made to jump through the hoop of explaining the difference.

I vaguely remember this, and it seems about right.

MORE STILL: Here’s a roundup of the scandal to date. And here’s another.

EVEN MORE STILL: Eugene Volokh responds appropriately to people who want him to blog more about the Plame affair.

Meanwhile, Doug Payton is unconvinced that this story has much to it.

And Charles Johnson links to a speech by Wilson that makes me wonder who thought he could be trusted with the Niger mission to begin with.

MESSAGE TO TED TURNER: It’s best if you don’t open your mouth. Because Jeff Jarvis notices when you do.

UPDATE: Phil Bowermaster has a more polite response to Turner’s concerns.

I’VE GOT MORE ON THE DEATH PENALTY over at GlennReynolds.com, including a response to my post by Jeralyn Merritt.

ARE JOURNALISTS INFORMATION SERVICE PROVIDERS who have to cough up records on demand from the FBI? No.

But that’s not what the FBI thinks, apparently.

A READER POINTS OUT that the Engineering News-Record — an engineering and construction publication — has a lot of stories on reconstruction in Iraq. Here’s their story index on that subject.