Please Note: I have not paid attention to the Scooter Libby Trial. I don’t care about the Scooter Libby Trial. If there is something important about the Scooter Libby Trial that I am missing, please inform me.
I was listening to Tim Russert of Meet the Press talk to David Broder and a few other reporters about the Scooter Libby trial while feeding Little Toot lunch. While Washington is all aflutter, the rest of America hits the snooze button. The press finds it difficult to fathom that Americans don’t care, but they really don’t care.
Why?
Let’s see, as far as any fair-minded person can tell, Washington D.C. is one big gossip-fest and Valerie Plame was the worst kept secret, it seems. She was so undercover she plunked her toothy, blond, be-speckled visage on Vanity Fair along with her dopey husband. It should worry everyone that this dapper fella negotiates anything for America. His pocket square would give the bad guys the giggles. Middle America just rolls their eyes. Super-secret spies our over-sized asses.
And then you have the superficial, self-important, easily lead, incurious, lazy national media worried about how far they’ve fallen. They kvetch about their perceived loss of respect. Bad news guys and gals, you didn’t have much respect to lose. In addition, you press-types have used the First Amendment to cover for all sorts of nefarious behavior. You seem to believe you are above the law.
The press is so insulated, they forget that average Americans work every day and worry about running afoul of the law. Americans have no special protections. The press, rightly so, should have freedom of the press but that doesn’t mean they have freedom to be a traitor, freedom to lie, freedom to distort, and freedom to cover for a crime.
The crime leads directly to a special prosecutor. Special prosecutor: that government created beast with no restraint and unfettered authority. How’s it feel to be on the receiving end of an unchained pit bull? Scary. Sure, as shootin’.
MR. RUSSERT: It is different when you can’t finish your sentence or complete your thought, when you’re restricted to yes-no answers. And it is uncomfortable.
And…
MS. IFILL: Well, you know, the journalists I talked to are having sort, sort of a collective nervous breakdown about this. We watch you testify, we watch Judy Miller and Matt Cooper and whoever else we end up seeing before this trial is over, and we think, “Well, could my bad handwriting now be part of a, a court trial. Or could my misremembered conversation now make me liableâ€â€a person who lies?â€Â
But isn’t that exactly what Libby is being tried for a “misremembered conversation”? Now imagine how it feels being on the receiving end of that pit bull, being wrongfully charged AND the press passes judgment on your guilt before the charges are even brought. Does it feel bad? I’ll answer for you: It feels terrible.
Why, it feels like being a Duke Lacrosse Player.
Here’s the thing, though, the Duke Lacrosse Players are innocent. Is the press innocent in the Scooter Libby trial? The guys on Russert’s show sure want to believe that. It’s the White House’s fault for manipulating the press, said David Broder. How’s that for passing the buck? Please.
MR. BRODER: Well, it hurts. And it hurts because I think it opens up something that has been worrisome, I think, to many of us in the press, which is the way in which relationships between reporters and government officials can be used by those government officials to plant stories, in effect, that are damaging to their political enemies using the reporters, in effect, to carry out their political mission. And that’s different from cultivating a source to get information that’s of value to you as a journalist. Here you are being used by the government official to carry out their political work.
And Howard Kurtz won’t let go of the fact that this is a trial about nothing. It’s time he be called as a witness, I do believe–just to get a feel for the whole thing.
MR. SIMON: No, I think the public has a healthy realism about how the press operates. But I also have to say, this is a nutty trial that nobody except the people involved in it and the people covering it care about. Once again we have a prosecutor who can’t an indictment for the real crimeâ€â€leaking the identity of a CIA agentâ€â€so he goes instead for the crime of, well, people didn’t tell him the complete truth when they talked to him. I mean, there’s no underlying crime here that anyone has been indicted for. This is just a show trial. And I’ve got to say, even if he’s convictedâ€â€and he may not beâ€â€but even if he’s convicted, would any judge send to prison a guy named Scooter? He wouldn’t last 48 hours.
MR. RUSSERT: We…
MR. KURTZ: But, Roger, it’s a show trial that has put the spotlight on the Bush administration’s attempt to make a case about pre-war intelligence that turned out not to be true. That matters.
Um, Mr. Kurtz, no one but you progressive, dogma-holding press believe this is what the trial is about. This is what they wanted the trial to be about. No one in America thinks that the Scooter Libby’s trial is about pre-war intelligence.
So which way is it MSM? Are you a bunch of easily lead, narrative-driven, incurious, lazy, stupid, sheep working as mouthpieces for the administration or some other government leader outside or in? Or, are you smarter than everyone, incisive, knowledgeable, hard-charging, can’t be bought, objective, fair and balanced, and possess unimpeachable character? It’s pretty hard to be both, don’t you think?
Perhaps America really doesn’t care about your sad, pathetic plight because they believe the whole mess in Washington deserves each other. Oh and then there’s this: Fitzgerald is just one more guy in a long line of DA’s, prosecutors, and lawyers generally, that have too much power. The whole trial is bogus. Who can remember what they say on a given day when they’ve talked to fifty people? This is much ado about nothing, but the press just wouldn’t let it go. America’s national security was at stake, came the somber cries from the same people who revealed serious state secrets like the NSA and audio surveillance. This was to be a “gotcha!” moment for the President. Turns out it’s a “gotcha!” moment for the press. Oops! Once again, a Martha Stewart sin is being prosecuted like it’s the end of the world.
Isn’t that what the press wanted?
In other news, Clinton got a blow job.
Well,
The Libby trial certainly shows that, contrary to the beliefs of many, the “MSM” has basically been acting as the uncritical mouthpiece of the Bush administration.
Oh dear.
Raison d’etre gone.
What now?
The Press rightly feels it is on trial, because it knows it should be on trial.
Btw, Russert has admitted under oath that he does not remember his own conversations about the kind of things Fitzgerald thinks Libby should remember, Russert then being corrected by his own notes. And Russert apparently has no notes for his conversations with Libby, while also saying something documented by Media to the effect that when Libby was indicted, Russert took it as a personal Christmas.
Well you have now finally got your real present, Tim, coal. At least Clinton got a blow job – thanks for reminding me, Steve.
Yep, gotta make the most of that lump of coal Fitzmas gave y’all.
In other news, steve, Clinton raped a woman while he was Arkansas AG. Luckily for him, and America it seems, the statute of limitations had run out when it came to light…
This put a prick up my ears:
MR. SIMON: … Once again we have a prosecutor who can’t get an indictment for the real crimeâ€â€leaking the identity of a CIA agentâ€â€so he goes instead for the crime of, well, people didn’t tell him the complete truth when they talked to him.
Since we know that it’s far, far easier for a prosecutor to get an indictment than it is to get a conviction—he just has to show evidence to indicate that a crime might have been committed, not that he could convict someone of it—then what does Mr. Fitzgerald’s inability to get said indictment indicate about the strength of his case?
And Mr. Simon also doesn’t seem to realize that “people didn’t tell him the complete truth” while under oath is a real, honest-to-god crime called perjury.
But, no, Mr. Simon is so sure that the crime of releasing an undercover CIA agent’s name (undercover in Washington, safe behind a desk, with everyone knowing who she is and what she did), that he doesn’t NEED a trial to tell him so.
Why, he must be from that future portrayed in “Minority Report,” and he’s just jumping the gun a little.
God bless you , Jeff. Smartest kid in town.
No, they wanted to be acolytes at the High Mass of Getting Chimpy. It turns out that they are just another sordid player in official Washington’s games of tell and see. And they are being brought forward as the grillee and not the griller – and they do not like that one bit.
Bah. Humshit, the lot of ‘em!
Brilliant sum up, Jeff. A blessing on your smart head.
Jeff? Eh?
Clarice, it’s Melissa’s post. :smile:
Great post Melissa!
Excellent Melissa…I too was gagging over the media boo hoo’ing and their silly spin the administration used them. It’s actually a little sick.
You haven’t been paying attention.
What it shows is (again) that a special prosecutor can and will do just about anything he can to get an indictment, so that it looks like he’s been doing something for the last couple of years. We will, it seems, never learn.
Remember he was told to find the leak, he found Armitage in what? 2003? Charged Libby in 2005, brought him to trial and now we get to see Russert flounder around about how he told the FBI one thing and the Grand Jury another. Must have been covered in the “corrections” column on the web.
Then we watch them report on themselves, funny how all of the suden the trial’s about nothing.
Brave, Brave reporters.
Gotta say, I’m enjoying this way too much.
TW covered54. As in 54 covered asses.
I just feel all warm and fuzzy, not to mention hairy, male and under the influence, to be confused with Jeff Goldstein. I think this is my best day of blogging yet!
Uhm…no.
The President engaged in sexual harassment in the Oval Office, then lied about it under oath; sexual assault in the White House; and rape while in Arkansas.
Well, that actually worries me. Remember how the TV show about nothing ended.
Can you even imagine the press and Left’s reaction if Bush had assaulted on of the interns? Look at their reaction to a creepy congressman writing notes to an intern/page.
And I guess by bringing Clinton up, they’re admitting this whole Scooter episode is payback–it’s just paying back a bunch of people, they don’t want paid back.
Life is so unfair.
Is this the same Clarice who who noodles verbose minutiae regarding the ‘Scooter’ scapegoat?
Incidentally, Melissa, they couldn’t get Al Capone on anything substantive either, mainly because his Plausible Deniability disconnected him with the salient crimes he was guilty of. They put him out of commission using tax evasion. Perhaps they should have just given up on justice.
Because, sheesh, he’s a REPUBLICAN. Thus, he is of course guilty of perfidy.
Friggen Wingnuts who assume innocence…
I mean, geez, Republicans are JUST LIKE mobsters!@
Can you even imagine the press and Left’s reaction if Bush had assaulted on of the interns?
My favorite thing to imagine is the Left’s response if Bush would presided over Waco.
Why doesn’t anyone give a damn about Richard Armitage, the actual “leaker”?
semanticleo, you wanna take that one?
The real disconnect about watching a talk show with Russert discuss the Libby trial is that during his testimony, Tim Russert was caught out in his lying to the court in a previous affidavit.
“Richard Armitage”
He, like Powell, has some questions to answer and, unlike others, seems to have a conscience.
You, and yours, would like to draw fire away from
some favorite icons, but the focus is fixed.
Tell me. Are you one of those who feels Nixon was railroaded, or did you finally come to your senses on that one?
Wait a minute. Aren’t we supposed to be concerned with who told Bob Novak that Valerie was CIA?
What does his conscience have to do with it? And if it wasn’t Libby that did “the deed” why should we care about him?
Unless we’re progressives who hate Bu$hco McHitler?
This is of course your same defense, simenticleo, Tertiary Syphilis.
“Unless we’re progressives who hate Bu$hco McHitler?”
Pray tell. What is there to like?
Lose the snark and address the substance, please.
And be sure to remember this story the next time you see one of those “full court presses” with a “favorite” issue.
I mean the one where there is a story in Time and Newsweek, followed by the NYT and WaPo, and finally CNN, FOX, MSNBC, NBC, CBS & ABC evening news programs, just before some Congressional hearings into some obtuse subject that has been talked about in about 3 or 4 years.
These sorts of thing are not coincidences. There is a message, and it comes with ready to publish text.
Is it really any different for the press to be lead around by the nose by the Administration or by the Congress ? Of course not. But, like any addict, they can’t help themselves.
Boy, it sure got quiet around here, didn’t it?
Pablo,
Better than a box of chocolates. Thanks!
What exactly is Libby accused of? I haven’t been following this story at all, but is the charge that he lied based on his story being different that Russerts and Millers? Is this all just basically a he said/she said deal?
B Moe, I think it’s a his calendar or notes said/ he said. thing.
I think it’s important to remember that when Broder talks about *planting* stories, he’s not just describing a process of getting facts out there … what Broder is glossing over is that what’s being planted is *spin,* that leakers with information are calling reporters that they trust (tacitly or otherwise) will spin that information appropriately. In that light, it’s completely disingenuous to cast the reporters as being “used.”
Did you say Scopes Monkey Trial?
This.
This.
This.
This.
This.
Say when…
B Moe
Yes. But Libby’s on trial because everyone knows journalists never get their facts wrong.
‘Zactly–as previously discussed.
Nothing to see here…move along.
Especially since we used smaller font for the “correction.”
wishbone,
Don’t forget the lack of attacks on the US in the last 5+ years. I like that.
I’m going to assume that since it was the weekend when you wrote that that you were either half-asleep or totally wasted.
A conscience? So you mean when the press core and the entire left-leaning sideof the political spectrum in the US and probably the world were waiting for either Cheney or Rove to be “frog-marched” out of the Whitehouse, Richard Armitage came forward and publicly admitted his role in the leak of what some people thought to be classified national security information?
Well, thank god for that, I thought someone else was on trial for hindering that investigation. And someone else had a really close election because they thought he “ordered payback on the truth-tellers”.
Conscience my aching ass. How about we change that to “ a well developed political skill of covering his own ass.”
It doesn’t say much for Mr. Broder’s profession that they get used that way, know they are getting used that way, and continue to let that happen.
Perhaps they wouldn’t get used that way if they started being reporters more often and advocates less often. The fact that the politicians see Broder, Russert, and their comrades as just another lobbying group must be galling. They need stories, their editors demand stories so they have something to sell; so in order to get the stories they’ll assume any position necessary and perform any little nasty hatchet-job they must.
I can understand how and why they turn on every administration, including ones that they like, such as Bill Clinton’s. Again, it must be terribly galling to overweening pride to have it shoved in your face daily that you are less a crusader for truth and more like a combination call-girl and errand-boy.
God, that’s funny.
What concerns me is not that the editors demand stories, but that Tim Russert isn’t “just” a reporter, he’s a senior vice-president and chief of NBS’s Washington Bureau. In effect, an editor, and yet to most people, he’s a news anchor. A guy who oozes the fact-checked truth without an agenda. He’s not a corporate suit, he’s Big Russ’ kid.
And it’s crap, as an editor, everything he says reflects the editorial position of NBC News.
Imagine if Ben Bradlee was doing the actual reporting on Watergate, wouldn’t there have been a legitimate beef? Wouldn’t that have muddied the waters? What if Walter Pincus was the editor of the Washington Post? Do you think they would have run the correction that (to their credit) they ran?
Russert, right now, shouldn’t be working as a bureau chief, editor or anything else at NBC unless and until his conflict of interest is resolved and he should certainly not be reporting or commenting on the Scooter Libby trial on TV for any show on NBC.
Every time Russert appears on TV and talks about this trial it is made clear that 1) He was a witness for the prosecution. and 2)He isn’t the guy on trial. Which leads to the impression that 3) Scooter Libby is as guilty as the day is long.
This whole Plame thing annoys me, can you tell?
Oh, I was speaking generally, LMC, not specifically to Mr. Russert. And you are correct – him being a witness to the case should not be making any decisions regarding reporting of it. That is a clear conflict of interest and is a clear ethical violation. Any attorney in a like position would not be allowed to be on that case and would be sequestered from any information on it.
Very amusing, attorneys have higher ethical standards than journalists.
No worries Mikey, just ranting. Spewing Right-Wing venom across the intartubes and giving the left both reason and opportunity to skewer me with what they would normally call outrageous hate speech. But I deserve it because I think that Tim Russert, Big Russ’ boy, taught by Catholic nuns, is a liar and a fink.
This trial is the “anti-Watergate”.
Everyone needs a closer look at Matt Cooper’s work before he ran his story. Today’s journalists are not Woodward and Bernstein. And they are making messes that they need to be put under this kind of critical review.
umm…*that need to put under this [Libby trial] kind of critical review*
Not that this is going to get seen anyway, since THE NEWS AND THE THREADS MOVE SO FAST!
What, exactly, do you think Mr. Broder’s profession is? It’s been my observation that getting used that way, knowing they are getting used that way, and continuing to let it happen, are precisely what Mr. Broder’s profession does.
Don’t tell me you thought there was a difference between that and journalism.
McGehee –
No, just that they seem to think there is, and bemoan the fact there isn’t and they are the punchline to the old joke.
Maybe that’s why they like France so much.