MR. ROVE AND THE ACCESS OF EVIL
Thu Jul 14, 2005 05:23
64.140.158.54
MR. ROVE AND THE ACCESS OF EVIL
Tell us your "source," Judy Not published in The New York Times
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
By Greg Palast
The only thing more evil, small-minded and treasonous than the Bush
Administration's jailing Judith Miller for a crime the Bush
Administration committed, is Judith Miller covering up her Bush
Administration "source."
Judy, Karl Rove ain't no "source." A confidential source -- and I've
worked with many -- is an insider ready to put himself on the line
to blow the whistle on an official lie or hidden danger. I would
protect a source's name with my life and fortune as would any
journalist who's not a craven jerk (the Managing Editor of Time
Magazine comes to mind).
But the weasel who whispered "Valerie Plame" in Miller's ear was no
source. Whether it was Karl Rove or some other Rove-tron inside the
Bush regime (and no one outside Bush's band would have had this
information), this was an official using his official info to commit
a crime for the sole purpose of punishing a real whistleblower,
Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, for questioning our President's
mythological premise for war in Iraq.
New York Times reporter Miller and her paper would rather she go to
prison for four months than identify their "source." Why?
Part of her oddball defense is that The Times never ran the story
about Wilson's wife. They get no points for that. The Times should
have run the story with the headline: BUSH OPERATIVE COMMITS FELONY
TO PUNISH WHISTLEBLOWER. The lead paragraph should have
been, "Today, Mr. K--- R--- [or other slime ball as appropriate]
attempted to plant sensitive intelligence information on The New
York Times, a felony offense, in an attempt to harm former
Ambassador Joseph Wilson who challenged the President's claim
regarding Iraq's nuclear program."
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=444&row=0
A Karl Rove or Rove-like creature peddling a back-door smear doesn't
make him a source. Miller's real crime is not concealing a source,
but burying the story. A reporter should never, ever give notes to a
grand jury, but this information is something The Times owes the
public, not the prosecutors.
Why didn't The Times run this story? Why not now? Who are they
covering for and why?
Maybe the problem for The Times is that this is the same "source"
that used Miller to promote, as fact, her ersatz report before the
invasion of Iraq that Saddam truly had nukes and bugs and chemicals
he could launch at Los Angeles. That "source" too needs publication,
Judy.
Every rule has an exception. My mama always told me to compliment
the chef at dinner. But that doesn't apply when the chef pees in
your soup. Likewise, there's an exception to the rule of source
protection. When officialdom uses "you-can't-use-my- name" to cover
a lie, the official is not a source, but a disinformation
propagandist -- and Miller and The Times have been all too willing
to play Izvestia to the Bush's Kremlinesque prevarications.
And that is what Miller is protecting: the evil called "access."
The great poison in the corpus of American journalism is the lust
for tidbits of supposedly "inside" information which is more often
than not inside misinformation parading as hot news.
And thus we have Miller sucking on the steaming sewage pipe of White
House lies about Iraq and spitting it out in the pages of The Times
as "investigative reporting," for which The Times has apologized.
Likewise, we had the embarrassment of Bob Woodward's special access
to the Oval Office after the September 11 attacks when Woodward
reported the exclusive news that the President was a flawless
commander in chief in the war on terror -- for which Woodward has
yet to apologize.
While reporting from the Potemkin village of decision-making set up
for him at the White House, Woodward missed the real story that, in
the words of the Downing Street memo, our leaders were losing track
of Osama while they spent their time "fixing the intelligence" on
Iraq. Even if Woodward learned of it, would he have reported it at
the risk of losing his access to evil?
As Karl Rove chuckles and Judy does time, we are left to ask, What
are Miller and The New York Times doing: protecting the name of a
source or covering up their conduit to the Bush gang's machinery of
deception?
One can only be sympathetic to Miller for choosing jail over bending
to the power of the State. But as T.S. Eliot said,
"The last temptation is the greatest treason,
To do the right deed for the wrong reason."
---
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best
Democracy Money Can Buy. Subscribe to his commentaries or view his
investigative reports for BBC Television at http://www.GregPalast.com
=====================
The man behind the man: Rove is the White House's key player
Seattle Times, WA - 30 minutes ago
By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten. WASHINGTON � President Bush once said he would fire any White House staffer who had leaked ...
NIREl>>
Rove -- Thug, Coward and Now, a Smoking Gun?: Margaret Carlson
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- On TV recently, I called him a thug, this then-unknown leaker who watched from his privileged White House perch as my friend and colleague, Matt Cooper, went through hell to protect him.
Now that I know that the person is Karl Rove, I would like to revise and extend my remarks. Karl Rove is not a thug; he is a coward. Two years ago, he could have come clean, orchestrated his own redemption, saved millions in taxpayers' dollars, and spared everyone a lot of agony.
Instead, we've had a two-year investigation to find out what President George W. Bush could have walked across the hall and learned.
At one time, the president called the outing of the CIA agent married to former Ambassador Joe Wilson ``a very serious matter'' and said the person who did it should be fired. In certain circumstances, exposing an undercover agent is a crime. In any circumstances, it's wrong.
At least six reporters were leaked information suggesting that Wilson was a girlie man who needed his wife to get him a job. Rove and others were angry that Wilson had debunked their assertion that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium for his weapons of mass destruction, an assessment shared by George Tenet, CIA director at the time.
Scott's Smackdown
For months, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it was ridiculous to suspect Rove. ``If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration,'' he said. Statements like that turned a press briefing two days ago into a rare smackdown of McClellan, who was suddenly mum on Rove. When the 35th question in as many minutes came at him, his made-up face looked as gray as his suit. I thought he might cry.
It's high time heat shifted to the West Wing where it belongs. But that doesn't mean the reporters who were used by their sources are off the hook. Ironically, the reporter in jail, Judith Miller, didn't even write a story, perhaps because she was burned earlier for relying on anonymous sources who used her to plump for war against Saddam.
Her New York Times colleague Frank Rich noted in his column one Miller piece in particular -- ``a notoriously credulous front- page story about aluminum tubes'' -- that fueled the hawks around Bush. When the Times took the unusual step of apologizing for its WMD reporting, 10 of the 12 stories cited contained Miller's byline.
Long Goodbye
But all that's forgotten now as Miller pays the high price of prison. Cooper, who's not gone to jail, through no fault of his own, has less of a storybook ending to his ordeal. The ground shifted under him when his bosses at Time magazine turned over his e-mails, citing the gravity of the Supreme Court's rejection of the reporters' appeals, as well as shareholders.
Cooper had no secret source left to protect but he still stuck by his promise. On July 6, sure he'd be booked and fingerprinted later that day for not testifying about a moot point, he said a long goodbye to his wife and six-year-old son. But that morning Cooper's lawyer, after reading in the Wall Street Journal that Rove was happy to waive any confidentiality agreements, accepted one for Cooper. Although he surely had little new to say, Cooper testified yesterday.
Cooper's two-year nightmare may be over but Bush's is not. Rove is the guy Bush relies on to deep-six the smoking gun. What will he do now that Rove is the smoking gun?
Rove the Unique
No one's quite like Rove. Remember the 2000 presidential primary in South Carolina, when Bush was saved with a little help from rumors about John McCain's black child and drug-addled wife? It was Rove to the rescue last month when, amid sinking support for the war, he bolstered the commander in chief by claiming that after 9/11 Bush was ready to go to war while the Democrats were ready to go to therapy.
Without Rove to construct them, Republicans' talking points are atrocious. They cling to the fact that Rove didn't reveal the name of that woman, Valerie Plame. Sound familiar? All day the last two days, that's what they said.
So this is how the investigation of leaks ends, in new leaks, perhaps from the prosecutor investigating the leaks. Cooper kept a secret for two years. Someone around the prosecutor couldn't keep one for two days, so there came Newsweek, disclosing the Time e-mails that revealed Rove fingering Wilson's wife.
Rove may end up leaving the White House, but he'll do the same things, only in a different location for a lot more money. The Times may cleanse itself of its WMD reporting with the sacrifice of its reporter going to jail.
Perhaps some good will come of this. Surely, journalists have been reminded they should say no to those cowards trying to get revenge, dish dirt, and score points without putting their name on it. Protection goes to those who want to correct an injustice, not perpetrate one.
To contact the writer of this column:
Margaret Carlson at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 14, 2005 00:12 EDT
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_carlson&sid=a.u_bqhEUwvE
Tell us your "source," Judy Not published in The New York Times
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
By Greg Palast
The only thing more evil, small-minded and treasonous than the Bush
Administration's jailing Judith Miller for a crime the Bush
Administration committed, is Judith Miller covering up her Bush
Administration "source."
Judy, Karl Rove ain't no "source." A confidential source -- and I've
worked with many -- is an insider ready to put himself on the line
to blow the whistle on an official lie or hidden danger. I would
protect a source's name with my life and fortune as would any
journalist who's not a craven jerk (the Managing Editor of Time
Magazine comes to mind).
But the weasel who whispered "Valerie Plame" in Miller's ear was no
source. Whether it was Karl Rove or some other Rove-tron inside the
Bush regime (and no one outside Bush's band would have had this
information), this was an official using his official info to commit
a crime for the sole purpose of punishing a real whistleblower,
Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, for questioning our President's
mythological premise for war in Iraq.
New York Times reporter Miller and her paper would rather she go to
prison for four months than identify their "source." Why?
Part of her oddball defense is that The Times never ran the story
about Wilson's wife. They get no points for that. The Times should
have run the story with the headline: BUSH OPERATIVE COMMITS FELONY
TO PUNISH WHISTLEBLOWER. The lead paragraph should have
been, "Today, Mr. K--- R--- [or other slime ball as appropriate]
attempted to plant sensitive intelligence information on The New
York Times, a felony offense, in an attempt to harm former
Ambassador Joseph Wilson who challenged the President's claim
regarding Iraq's nuclear program."
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=444&row=0
A Karl Rove or Rove-like creature peddling a back-door smear doesn't
make him a source. Miller's real crime is not concealing a source,
but burying the story. A reporter should never, ever give notes to a
grand jury, but this information is something The Times owes the
public, not the prosecutors.
Why didn't The Times run this story? Why not now? Who are they
covering for and why?
Maybe the problem for The Times is that this is the same "source"
that used Miller to promote, as fact, her ersatz report before the
invasion of Iraq that Saddam truly had nukes and bugs and chemicals
he could launch at Los Angeles. That "source" too needs publication,
Judy.
Every rule has an exception. My mama always told me to compliment
the chef at dinner. But that doesn't apply when the chef pees in
your soup. Likewise, there's an exception to the rule of source
protection. When officialdom uses "you-can't-use-my- name" to cover
a lie, the official is not a source, but a disinformation
propagandist -- and Miller and The Times have been all too willing
to play Izvestia to the Bush's Kremlinesque prevarications.
And that is what Miller is protecting: the evil called "access."
The great poison in the corpus of American journalism is the lust
for tidbits of supposedly "inside" information which is more often
than not inside misinformation parading as hot news.
And thus we have Miller sucking on the steaming sewage pipe of White
House lies about Iraq and spitting it out in the pages of The Times
as "investigative reporting," for which The Times has apologized.
Likewise, we had the embarrassment of Bob Woodward's special access
to the Oval Office after the September 11 attacks when Woodward
reported the exclusive news that the President was a flawless
commander in chief in the war on terror -- for which Woodward has
yet to apologize.
While reporting from the Potemkin village of decision-making set up
for him at the White House, Woodward missed the real story that, in
the words of the Downing Street memo, our leaders were losing track
of Osama while they spent their time "fixing the intelligence" on
Iraq. Even if Woodward learned of it, would he have reported it at
the risk of losing his access to evil?
As Karl Rove chuckles and Judy does time, we are left to ask, What
are Miller and The New York Times doing: protecting the name of a
source or covering up their conduit to the Bush gang's machinery of
deception?
One can only be sympathetic to Miller for choosing jail over bending
to the power of the State. But as T.S. Eliot said,
"The last temptation is the greatest treason,
To do the right deed for the wrong reason."
---
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best
Democracy Money Can Buy. Subscribe to his commentaries or view his
investigative reports for BBC Television at http://www.GregPalast.com
=====================
The man behind the man: Rove is the White House's key player
Seattle Times, WA - 30 minutes ago
By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten. WASHINGTON � President Bush once said he would fire any White House staffer who had leaked ...
NIREl>>
Rove -- Thug, Coward and Now, a Smoking Gun?: Margaret Carlson
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- On TV recently, I called him a thug, this then-unknown leaker who watched from his privileged White House perch as my friend and colleague, Matt Cooper, went through hell to protect him.
Now that I know that the person is Karl Rove, I would like to revise and extend my remarks. Karl Rove is not a thug; he is a coward. Two years ago, he could have come clean, orchestrated his own redemption, saved millions in taxpayers' dollars, and spared everyone a lot of agony.
Instead, we've had a two-year investigation to find out what President George W. Bush could have walked across the hall and learned.
At one time, the president called the outing of the CIA agent married to former Ambassador Joe Wilson ``a very serious matter'' and said the person who did it should be fired. In certain circumstances, exposing an undercover agent is a crime. In any circumstances, it's wrong.
At least six reporters were leaked information suggesting that Wilson was a girlie man who needed his wife to get him a job. Rove and others were angry that Wilson had debunked their assertion that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium for his weapons of mass destruction, an assessment shared by George Tenet, CIA director at the time.
Scott's Smackdown
For months, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said it was ridiculous to suspect Rove. ``If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration,'' he said. Statements like that turned a press briefing two days ago into a rare smackdown of McClellan, who was suddenly mum on Rove. When the 35th question in as many minutes came at him, his made-up face looked as gray as his suit. I thought he might cry.
It's high time heat shifted to the West Wing where it belongs. But that doesn't mean the reporters who were used by their sources are off the hook. Ironically, the reporter in jail, Judith Miller, didn't even write a story, perhaps because she was burned earlier for relying on anonymous sources who used her to plump for war against Saddam.
Her New York Times colleague Frank Rich noted in his column one Miller piece in particular -- ``a notoriously credulous front- page story about aluminum tubes'' -- that fueled the hawks around Bush. When the Times took the unusual step of apologizing for its WMD reporting, 10 of the 12 stories cited contained Miller's byline.
Long Goodbye
But all that's forgotten now as Miller pays the high price of prison. Cooper, who's not gone to jail, through no fault of his own, has less of a storybook ending to his ordeal. The ground shifted under him when his bosses at Time magazine turned over his e-mails, citing the gravity of the Supreme Court's rejection of the reporters' appeals, as well as shareholders.
Cooper had no secret source left to protect but he still stuck by his promise. On July 6, sure he'd be booked and fingerprinted later that day for not testifying about a moot point, he said a long goodbye to his wife and six-year-old son. But that morning Cooper's lawyer, after reading in the Wall Street Journal that Rove was happy to waive any confidentiality agreements, accepted one for Cooper. Although he surely had little new to say, Cooper testified yesterday.
Cooper's two-year nightmare may be over but Bush's is not. Rove is the guy Bush relies on to deep-six the smoking gun. What will he do now that Rove is the smoking gun?
Rove the Unique
No one's quite like Rove. Remember the 2000 presidential primary in South Carolina, when Bush was saved with a little help from rumors about John McCain's black child and drug-addled wife? It was Rove to the rescue last month when, amid sinking support for the war, he bolstered the commander in chief by claiming that after 9/11 Bush was ready to go to war while the Democrats were ready to go to therapy.
Without Rove to construct them, Republicans' talking points are atrocious. They cling to the fact that Rove didn't reveal the name of that woman, Valerie Plame. Sound familiar? All day the last two days, that's what they said.
So this is how the investigation of leaks ends, in new leaks, perhaps from the prosecutor investigating the leaks. Cooper kept a secret for two years. Someone around the prosecutor couldn't keep one for two days, so there came Newsweek, disclosing the Time e-mails that revealed Rove fingering Wilson's wife.
Rove may end up leaving the White House, but he'll do the same things, only in a different location for a lot more money. The Times may cleanse itself of its WMD reporting with the sacrifice of its reporter going to jail.
Perhaps some good will come of this. Surely, journalists have been reminded they should say no to those cowards trying to get revenge, dish dirt, and score points without putting their name on it. Protection goes to those who want to correct an injustice, not perpetrate one.
To contact the writer of this column:
Margaret Carlson at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 14, 2005 00:12 EDT
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&refer=columnist_carlson&sid=a.u_bqhEUwvE
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