Yellowgate update
Hard Target by digby@ hullabaloo
Woodward, who has had lengthy interviews with President Bush for his last two books, dismissed criticism that he has grown too close to White House officials. He said he prods them into providing a fuller picture of the administration's workings because of the time he devotes to the books.
"The net to readers," Woodward said, "is a voluminous amount of quality, balanced information that explains the hardest target in Washington," the Bush administration.
Here's some of that quality, balanced information from "Plan of Attack":
Rove said he wanted the president to start that February or March and begin raising the money, probably $200 million. He had a schedule. In February, March and April 2003, there would be between 12 and 16 fundraisers.
"We got a war coming," the president told Rove flatly, "and you're just going to have to wait." He had decided. "The moment is coming." The president did not give a date, but he left the impression with Rove that it would be January or February or March at the latest.
"Remember the problem with your dad's campaign," Rove replied. "A lot of people said he got started too late."
"I understand," Bush said. "I'll tell you when I'm comfortable with you starting."
And then his codpiece exploded all over the living room.
I've been hearing all the television gasbags try to explain what impact this "bombshell" is going to have on Fitzgerald's case. Victoria Toensing is on CNN pushing the Libby line that Fitzgerald is inept because he didn't know about this Woodward conversation. (She's making very little sense because she doiesn't know what to make of this revelation and can't figure out quite how to play it.)
But one thing seems obvious to me that nobody is mentioning. We know Libby leaked about Plame to reporters. We know Rove leaked about Plame to reporters. We now know that some other administration figure leaked to Woodward and another one (perhaps the same one) leaked to Novak. What is it going to take for the media to start calling this what it was --- a conspiracy?
I don't know if Fitz can prove such a thing. But common sense says that if a bunch of different White House sources are talking to the most powerful journalists in Washington about the same subject, it isn't just idle gossip. Woodward knew that. So did every other top reporter in town. They just preferred to pretend otherwise.
At the next blogger ethics panel we should call upon some of these great sages of journalism and ask them why it took a special prosecutor to back up Wilson's story that that the White House had engaged in a coordinated smear campaign. What other kinds of sleazy behavior are they covering up for their masters ... er, sources?
I do not buy the fact that Woodward didn't have an obligation to come forward publicly. He's a reporter. His job is to tell the public what he knows. With all of his great sources, you'd think that he of all people could have done some actual reporting and gotten to the bottom of the story two years ago.
It's my fervent belief that when the government is spinning the press, whether it's Ken Starr selectively leaking like a sieve or Scooter and his grubby little friends smearing Joe Wilson, it is the duty of journalists to report what they are doing. If their ever so valuable sources dry up because of that, then all the better. The sources are using them for a political agenda, not to get important information out to the public. These are not whistleblowers --- they are flaks and what they are doing is fundamentally dishonest.
If all the administration wanted to do was shed light on Wilson's alleged lack of credibility they could have called a fucking press conference and offered their evidence. It's not like they can't get anybody's attention. The very fact that they were dropping this into the ether like it was idle gossip is the reason that Bob Woodward, Judy Miller and all the rest should have written front page stories about it. It's not difficult. They could do what Matt Cooper did. He wrote that the White House was engaging in an underground war on Wilson. That is and was the story.
This crap about protecting anonymous sources is simply cover for the fact that these people are protecting their access to official lies. It's bullshit and it's why they are in trouble today.
Update: I just watched Wolf Blitzer try to pin Len Downie down on the fact that Woodward never bothered to write that he knew of another source. Blitzer asked him why, after Woodward revealed his information to Downie on October 28th that the paper didn't write about it then --- without revealing the source. Downie dance around, saying that the prosecutor got involved and then they couldn't talk. Blitzer pressed and said that they had several days before this "source" inexplicably (and we are apparently supposed to believe coincidentally) went to the prosecutor with the news that he had spoken to Woodward. Downie had no good answer for that and just hemmed and hawed his way through it, ending with his story that they must protect their sources.
Protecting sources in Washington apparently means not only protecting their identities, it's also means not revealing information they impart. I have to ask then --- what's the fucking point? Apparently the reporter's privilege is like a priest's or a shrink's. It's not the identity that's sacrosanct, which is what I always assumed. It's the information. And there is evidently no obligation to do more investigation so that you can get the story out.
At least until you get a big fat seven figure advance --- at which time it's ok to let the world know what you know, even as you protect your sources.
Deep Throat was misnamed. It's Bob himself who specializes in that particular act.
Woodward said today:
"I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets."
Funny, here I thought that reporters were supposed to be in the habit of revealing secrets. .
digby 12:52 PM Comment (0) | Trackback (0)
All The Presidents Stooges
by digby
I can't tell you how impressed I continue to be with the elite journalists in this country. After finding out that top reporters from The NY Times, The Washington Post and NBC all withheld information from the public about their leaders, I can only wonder what else they may be keeping back because of their cozy relationships, book deals, or political sympathies. This is a crisis in journalism.
Matt Cooper was leaked to by Karl Rove in the summer of 2003 and he fought to keep from revealing his source. But he fulfilled his responsibility as a journalist by writing a story and it was the real story about what was going on. Here's the first paragraph of Cooper's first article on the subject back in 2003:
Has the Bush Administration declared war on a former ambassador who conducted a fact-finding mission to probe possible Iraqi interest in African uranium? Perhaps.
I don't know why all the other reporters who were being leaked this nasty bit of business didn't write articles with that lead, but they should have. As we all know, that was the story then and it's the story now. Instead it's only after the long arm of the law reaches into the newsrooms that we find out dozens of reporters, including some of the most famous and powerful, were involved in this little episode.
It turns out that Bob Woodward, who worked hand in glove with the administration to create the hagiography of the codpiece, has known for years that the White House was engaged in a coordinated smear campaign against Joe Wilson. Indeed, he was right in the middle of it. In the beginning he may have thought that it was idle gossip, but by the time he was on Larry King defending it as such he knew damned well that it had been leaked by Rove, Libby and his own source all within a short period of time. He's been around Washington long enough to know a coordinated leak when he sees one.
Novak took the bait and dutifully regurgitated the information. Matt Cooper smelled a rat and wrote about it. It's amazing how many other journalists heard the tale and dismissed the significance or went out of their way to "protect" sources by talking about the case on television every chance they got while pretending they were uninvolved. But none pooh-poohed the story and its significance in public with quite the same fervor as Bush's friend Woody.
I had thought that Tim Russert and Andrea Mitchell were the Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh of this story with their endless "speculation" about an investigation in which they had information that could clear up many of the questions they were fielding. Woody takes the cake. His has been an Oscar worthy performance to rival Meryl Streep. He chewed the scenery so many times on Larry King that he should be given a lifetime achievement award:
(Cue "Battle Hymn of the Republic")
WOODWARD: If the judge would permit it, I would go serve some of her jail time, because I think the principle is that important, and it should be underscored. It's not a casual idea that we have confidential sources. It is absolutely vital. And I'll bet there are all kinds of reporters out there, if we could divvy up this four-month jail sentence -- I suspect the judge would not permit that, but if he would, I'll be first in line. It's that important to our business.
I don't think they could have made a cross big enough for the both of them.
Woodward and Miller have been willing tools of this administration from the get. Bob Novak was an open partisan on television, so everybody knew that they funneled information to him and he printed it for political purposes. These two (and their supporting players in television news) were the most important journalists in Washington working for the two most important papers in the country and the national news outlets. Among all the journalistic players in this, the only one who wrote the real story, in real time, was Matt Cooper. He's the one who should be getting the journalism awards, not Judy Miller. He's the only one who fulfilled his duty as a journalist and told his readers what their leaders were doing.
Perhaps this is the natural outcome of the press corps joining the entertainment industrial complex. It's ironic that one of the men who kicked off this new celebrity journalism with Watergate should emerge as one of the major players in this era's biggest "gate" scandal. I suspect that this time he'll have it in his contract to play himself in the film. After all, he's now bigger than Redford. And he's proven over the last couple of years that he's one of the best actors of his generation.
digby 8:13 AM Comments (35)
I had lumped Matt in with the Mitchell, Russert, Miller axis of evil - my bad. Thanks Digby.
Woodward, who has had lengthy interviews with President Bush for his last two books, dismissed criticism that he has grown too close to White House officials. He said he prods them into providing a fuller picture of the administration's workings because of the time he devotes to the books.
"The net to readers," Woodward said, "is a voluminous amount of quality, balanced information that explains the hardest target in Washington," the Bush administration.
Here's some of that quality, balanced information from "Plan of Attack":
Rove said he wanted the president to start that February or March and begin raising the money, probably $200 million. He had a schedule. In February, March and April 2003, there would be between 12 and 16 fundraisers.
"We got a war coming," the president told Rove flatly, "and you're just going to have to wait." He had decided. "The moment is coming." The president did not give a date, but he left the impression with Rove that it would be January or February or March at the latest.
"Remember the problem with your dad's campaign," Rove replied. "A lot of people said he got started too late."
"I understand," Bush said. "I'll tell you when I'm comfortable with you starting."
And then his codpiece exploded all over the living room.
I've been hearing all the television gasbags try to explain what impact this "bombshell" is going to have on Fitzgerald's case. Victoria Toensing is on CNN pushing the Libby line that Fitzgerald is inept because he didn't know about this Woodward conversation. (She's making very little sense because she doiesn't know what to make of this revelation and can't figure out quite how to play it.)
But one thing seems obvious to me that nobody is mentioning. We know Libby leaked about Plame to reporters. We know Rove leaked about Plame to reporters. We now know that some other administration figure leaked to Woodward and another one (perhaps the same one) leaked to Novak. What is it going to take for the media to start calling this what it was --- a conspiracy?
I don't know if Fitz can prove such a thing. But common sense says that if a bunch of different White House sources are talking to the most powerful journalists in Washington about the same subject, it isn't just idle gossip. Woodward knew that. So did every other top reporter in town. They just preferred to pretend otherwise.
At the next blogger ethics panel we should call upon some of these great sages of journalism and ask them why it took a special prosecutor to back up Wilson's story that that the White House had engaged in a coordinated smear campaign. What other kinds of sleazy behavior are they covering up for their masters ... er, sources?
I do not buy the fact that Woodward didn't have an obligation to come forward publicly. He's a reporter. His job is to tell the public what he knows. With all of his great sources, you'd think that he of all people could have done some actual reporting and gotten to the bottom of the story two years ago.
It's my fervent belief that when the government is spinning the press, whether it's Ken Starr selectively leaking like a sieve or Scooter and his grubby little friends smearing Joe Wilson, it is the duty of journalists to report what they are doing. If their ever so valuable sources dry up because of that, then all the better. The sources are using them for a political agenda, not to get important information out to the public. These are not whistleblowers --- they are flaks and what they are doing is fundamentally dishonest.
If all the administration wanted to do was shed light on Wilson's alleged lack of credibility they could have called a fucking press conference and offered their evidence. It's not like they can't get anybody's attention. The very fact that they were dropping this into the ether like it was idle gossip is the reason that Bob Woodward, Judy Miller and all the rest should have written front page stories about it. It's not difficult. They could do what Matt Cooper did. He wrote that the White House was engaging in an underground war on Wilson. That is and was the story.
This crap about protecting anonymous sources is simply cover for the fact that these people are protecting their access to official lies. It's bullshit and it's why they are in trouble today.
Update: I just watched Wolf Blitzer try to pin Len Downie down on the fact that Woodward never bothered to write that he knew of another source. Blitzer asked him why, after Woodward revealed his information to Downie on October 28th that the paper didn't write about it then --- without revealing the source. Downie dance around, saying that the prosecutor got involved and then they couldn't talk. Blitzer pressed and said that they had several days before this "source" inexplicably (and we are apparently supposed to believe coincidentally) went to the prosecutor with the news that he had spoken to Woodward. Downie had no good answer for that and just hemmed and hawed his way through it, ending with his story that they must protect their sources.
Protecting sources in Washington apparently means not only protecting their identities, it's also means not revealing information they impart. I have to ask then --- what's the fucking point? Apparently the reporter's privilege is like a priest's or a shrink's. It's not the identity that's sacrosanct, which is what I always assumed. It's the information. And there is evidently no obligation to do more investigation so that you can get the story out.
At least until you get a big fat seven figure advance --- at which time it's ok to let the world know what you know, even as you protect your sources.
Deep Throat was misnamed. It's Bob himself who specializes in that particular act.
Woodward said today:
"I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets."
Funny, here I thought that reporters were supposed to be in the habit of revealing secrets. .
digby 12:52 PM Comment (0) | Trackback (0)
All The Presidents Stooges
by digby
I can't tell you how impressed I continue to be with the elite journalists in this country. After finding out that top reporters from The NY Times, The Washington Post and NBC all withheld information from the public about their leaders, I can only wonder what else they may be keeping back because of their cozy relationships, book deals, or political sympathies. This is a crisis in journalism.
Matt Cooper was leaked to by Karl Rove in the summer of 2003 and he fought to keep from revealing his source. But he fulfilled his responsibility as a journalist by writing a story and it was the real story about what was going on. Here's the first paragraph of Cooper's first article on the subject back in 2003:
Has the Bush Administration declared war on a former ambassador who conducted a fact-finding mission to probe possible Iraqi interest in African uranium? Perhaps.
I don't know why all the other reporters who were being leaked this nasty bit of business didn't write articles with that lead, but they should have. As we all know, that was the story then and it's the story now. Instead it's only after the long arm of the law reaches into the newsrooms that we find out dozens of reporters, including some of the most famous and powerful, were involved in this little episode.
It turns out that Bob Woodward, who worked hand in glove with the administration to create the hagiography of the codpiece, has known for years that the White House was engaged in a coordinated smear campaign against Joe Wilson. Indeed, he was right in the middle of it. In the beginning he may have thought that it was idle gossip, but by the time he was on Larry King defending it as such he knew damned well that it had been leaked by Rove, Libby and his own source all within a short period of time. He's been around Washington long enough to know a coordinated leak when he sees one.
Novak took the bait and dutifully regurgitated the information. Matt Cooper smelled a rat and wrote about it. It's amazing how many other journalists heard the tale and dismissed the significance or went out of their way to "protect" sources by talking about the case on television every chance they got while pretending they were uninvolved. But none pooh-poohed the story and its significance in public with quite the same fervor as Bush's friend Woody.
I had thought that Tim Russert and Andrea Mitchell were the Lawrence Olivier and Vivien Leigh of this story with their endless "speculation" about an investigation in which they had information that could clear up many of the questions they were fielding. Woody takes the cake. His has been an Oscar worthy performance to rival Meryl Streep. He chewed the scenery so many times on Larry King that he should be given a lifetime achievement award:
(Cue "Battle Hymn of the Republic")
WOODWARD: If the judge would permit it, I would go serve some of her jail time, because I think the principle is that important, and it should be underscored. It's not a casual idea that we have confidential sources. It is absolutely vital. And I'll bet there are all kinds of reporters out there, if we could divvy up this four-month jail sentence -- I suspect the judge would not permit that, but if he would, I'll be first in line. It's that important to our business.
I don't think they could have made a cross big enough for the both of them.
Woodward and Miller have been willing tools of this administration from the get. Bob Novak was an open partisan on television, so everybody knew that they funneled information to him and he printed it for political purposes. These two (and their supporting players in television news) were the most important journalists in Washington working for the two most important papers in the country and the national news outlets. Among all the journalistic players in this, the only one who wrote the real story, in real time, was Matt Cooper. He's the one who should be getting the journalism awards, not Judy Miller. He's the only one who fulfilled his duty as a journalist and told his readers what their leaders were doing.
Perhaps this is the natural outcome of the press corps joining the entertainment industrial complex. It's ironic that one of the men who kicked off this new celebrity journalism with Watergate should emerge as one of the major players in this era's biggest "gate" scandal. I suspect that this time he'll have it in his contract to play himself in the film. After all, he's now bigger than Redford. And he's proven over the last couple of years that he's one of the best actors of his generation.
digby 8:13 AM Comments (35)
I had lumped Matt in with the Mitchell, Russert, Miller axis of evil - my bad. Thanks Digby.
posted by professor rat at 2:50 PM
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