Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Wonkette Knows All

Last night I wondered if the journalistic brotherhood was breaking a silence on what they know about the Plame case now that Matt Cooper has been thrown to the wolves. Back on Wednesday, Wonkette wrote this:

Facing jail, Matt and Judy might talk, or — worse for He Who Must Not Be Named (Karl Rove) — they’ll go to jail with lips still sealed but outrage on the part of friends and colleagues will shake lose which White House source outed Plame to smear Wilson.

I suspect this is exactly what happened with O’Donnell. The question now is how many other people in Washington know who the leaker is? Clearly, Wonkette thinks she does. The panel on Mclaughlin was unruffled at the revelation. Perhaps the real question, though, is how many members of the press corps know that is was Karl Rove who leaked Plame’s name?

Now I understand that whores like Cliff May and others would feel no compunction about covering for karl Rove. That’s their bread and butter. But what about these buddies of Matt Cooper who apparently know all about this? And what ethical guidelines say you must keep this quiet until your friend’s boss stabs him in the back? I don’t get it. If Cooper had folded and then everybody piled on saying they knew, then maybe I could at least understand the logic. But what’s the logic in doing it like this?

Moreover, is it normal that members of the press know the answer to a major mystery but they withhold it, as a group, from the public? I thought their job was to reveal the answers to major mysteries. In fact, this seems like the scoop of the decade. Back in the day, reporters were racing to get the news of semen stains and talking points on the air mere seconds before their rivals. Now, they all keep quiet?

This is a very interesting professional and ethical question for the media. Does the reporter’s privilege extend to his friends? Here you apparently have quite a few members of the DC press corps with a piece of very juicy information (allegedly) about the most powerful political operative in the United States — information that also has to do with an important matter of national security and a Justice department investigation. In some sort of friendship extension of the reporter’s privilege they say nothing. Amazing.

And during the time they say nothing an election is held in which the political operative in question works feverishly to smear his client’s opponent with scurrilous charges of borderline treason and cowardly behavior during wartime. The entire election is premised on the fact that the president, this man’s client, is the only one capable of handling national security. His prior campaign had been waged with an overt promise to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Still nothing.

Finally, when their friend seems headed to jail and his boss has agreed to turn over notes, they start to step up and reveal what they know.

Hookay. I think it’s time to convene another conference on blogger ethics and professional journalistic standards. I get so confused about these things.

Update: Here’s O’Donnell’s explanation on the Huffington Post today:

Rove Blew CIA Agent’s Cover

I revealed in yesterday’s taping of the McLaughlin Group that Time magazine’s emails will reveal that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper’s source. I have known this for months but didn’t want to say it at a time that would risk me getting dragged into the grand jury.

McLaughlin is seen in some markets on Friday night, so some websites have picked it up, including Drudge, but I don’t expect it to have much impact because McLaughlin is not considered a news show and it will be pre-empted in the big markets on Sunday because of tennis.

Since I revealed the big scoop, I have had it reconfirmed by yet another highly authoritative source. Too many people know this. It should break wide open this week. I know Newsweek is working on an ‘It’s Rove!’ story and will probably break it tomorrow.

Well, at least Karl got his boy elected instead of that traitor John Kerry, so that’s good.

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Lead, Follow or Have A Drink

Happy belated Birthday to Martini Republic, a vastly entertaining blog in all respects, and one that is particularly indispensible for astute commentary on LA and California politics. And that’s important because something’s happening here (what it is ain’t exactly clear.) I think I’m seeing the beginnings of a middle class revolt. It’s hard to know if it’s going to go anywhere or if its roots are deeper than Arnold dissatisfaction, but the face of rebellion in California is the face of a fresh faced, soccer mom school teacher. This is something to keep your eyes on as the debt squeeze and the generational squeeze of kids on one end and grandparents on the other begins to really take its toll on the middle class.

But for a little walk in LA sunshine, and there’s always plenty of that, check out MR’s Joseph Mailander’s tribute to our latin heritage on the occasion of our first latino mayor’s (can you believe it?) inauguration day.

Here’s looking at you, kidz.

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Who Told Rove?

As long as we’re enjoying ourselves speculating about frog marching and the like, here’s an interesting theory from super-smart commenter Sara:

Has anyone here carefully read Joe Wilson’s Book?

He provides plenty of carefully crafted information — for example see p. 443-445.

Wilson indicates that the work up on him beginning March, 2003, turned up the information on Valerie — which was then shared with Karl Rove who then circulated it through Administration and neo-Conservative circles. He cites conservative journalists who claimed to have had the information before the Novak column.

So the question is — in the work-up process beginning about March 2003, who had the information re: Plame?

I think it was John Bolton. At the time he was State Department Deputy Secretary with the portfolio in WMD and Nuclear Proliferation. Assuming that Valerie Plame’s identity was that of a NOC (No Official Cover) the information about her would have been highly classified, compartmentalized, and only those with a need to know would know. Bolton’s Job probably gave him that status. However to receive it he would have to sign off on the classification — that is he would have to agree to retain the security the CIA had established.

At the time, Bolton had two assistants who also worked in the White House in Cheney’s office, David Wurmser and John Hannah. Their names have been around as the potential leakers — Hannah if you remember is the guy who kept putting the Yellow Cake back in Bush’s speeches even though Tenet had demanded it be removed.

So — I think we have a game of catch going on here — or maybe some version of baseball, and the scoring is Bolton to Wurmser and Hannah, to Cheney (and/or Libby) to Rove.

I suspect getting Rove on Perjury is more or less step one in walking back the path of the ball.

Lest there be any doubt about Bolton’s true calling, remember, he was king of the Florida Recount.

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Big Fish

According to Catch, Lawrence O’Donnell named Karl Rove as the guy who fingered Plame to Matt Cooper and said he (O’Donnell) expects to be subpoenaed for saying it.

Interesting, if true. Are some members of the entertainment industrial complex prepared to storm the barricades now that one of their own has been left dangling in the wind?

UPDATE:

Here’s the dirt from E&P

MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case

By E&P Staff

Published: July 01, 2005 11:30 PM ET

NEW YORK Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O’Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name–and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

Here is the transcript of O’Donnell’s remarks:

“What we’re going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper’s e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

“And I know I’m going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of…for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine’s going to do with the grand jury.”

Other panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.

UPDATE:

Talk Left examines the possibility of a perjury charge.

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FYI

Last week Karl Rove appeared on Joe Scarborough. Here is part of what he said:

SCARBOROUGH: Talking about getting—getting things through the United States Congress, let’s talk about not so much about John Bolton, but what the problems with Bolton may mean when this summer, the president may be trying to get a Supreme Court nominee through.

You had John McCain and six other Republicans team up with Robert Byrd. And they came up with this anti-filibuster deal. Did you feel like John McCain and those Republican senators betrayed the president, betrayed the Republican Party, betrayed conservatives across America?

ROVE: Look, John McCain, for example, is one of the strongest advocates for an up-or-down vote on John Bolton. We wish that the issue of judicial nominations had been settled once and for all.

As you know, for 200 and some-odd years, judges, judicial nominations were not routinely filibustered. In fact, the only time an appellate nominee faced a filibuster was in—under Lyndon Johnson. And if you go back and read the words of Democrats and Republicans who were discussing the filibuster, they were anguished-filled, because they felt it was the only way that they could cause Lyndon Johnson to rethink the nomination of a person who had received payments under the table from a foundation while in public service.

And, eventually, for those reasons, Johnson withdrew him, because it became an ethical concern.

SCARBOROUGH: So, what happens this summer? Obviously, you know as well as anybody—you can go back to Thomas in ’91 — Bork in ’87. These summer appointments can be some of the dirtiest political battles that America sees.

ROVE: Well…

SCARBOROUGH: How is the president going to get a conservative through the United States Senate for the Supreme Court if he is having trouble getting John Bolton through?

ROVE: Well, first of all, look, John Bolton is going to be the United States ambassador to the United Nations. We will get either an up-or-down vote or he will be the ambassador one way…

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: A recess—possible recess appointment?

ROVE: Well, I’m not going to—we have got plenty of options we’re going to…

(CROSSTALK)

SCARBOROUGH: But that’s one possibility that is open…

(CROSSTALK)

ROVE: The best way for the United States to effect reform at the United Nations is to send a straight-talker to the United Nations.

And if the Democrats think they are doing themselves some favor by blocking his nomination, they are kidding themselves.

SCARBOROUGH: They’re just not going to succeed?

ROVE: They are not going to succeed.

And if there is a—we don’t know if there will be a Supreme Court vacancy. But if there is, I am confident the president will nominate a qualified mainstream conservative, somebody who will strictly interpret the Constitution and not legislate from the bench. And I am also confident that, because of the ability and talent of that individual, that they will be approved by the United States Senate.

If the Democrats attempt to filibuster, they will suffer politically, like they did in ’02 and ’04.

What a fucking thug.

They don’t want people to see them losing the war in Iraq or failing to quell terrorism. Instead the chickenhawk army is going to stage a summer pageant in which they will take the fight to the only enemy they have ever beaten (barely) — Democrats.

But with a 40% approval rating and allies like the wild-eyed Dobson freakshow, it may not be as easy as they think. It could be that the big tough Republican bullies have worn out their welcome with the American people. We’ll soon see.

I’d like to make one thing clear. I don’t see this as doom for the Democrats. The public is wavering in their support for Bush and they aren’t giving him the benefit of the doubt anymore. If the Dems stick together on this it is a very powerful message, regardless of the ultimate outcome. Remember, they believe that the perception of winning is more important than actually winning. That’s how we get them. Deny them that perception.

Gotta keep the heat on the gang of 14.

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Meltdown

I normally hate to predict things in too much detail because, you know, I can’t actually tell the future. But, in the case of this Supreme Court fight I honestly think that Brad Plumer and Kevin and some of my commenters to the post below are on the wrong track. I doubt very seriously that Bush is gaming this in this way:

Some lunatic winger will get nominated — maybe even Jance Rogers Brown — the Democrats in the Senate will say, “Oh hell no” and launch a filibuster. So the battle will rage on for a while, Bush’s “base” will get riled up and motivated to send in lots and lots of money, conservative judicial activists will blast their opponents with fairly superior firepower, and bobbing heads in the media will start carping on those “obstructionist” Democrats (bonus carping here if the nominee is a woman, minority, and/or Catholic).

Finally Bush will give a very somber speech about withdrawing his nominee, announce that he’s very disappointed in the Senate, toss in a few bonus 9/11 references, and nominate some slightly-less-lunatic ultraconservative instead.

That’s the Bork-Scalia scenario. And it worked out very well for the wingnuts, indeed. They’ve been feeding off the Bork defeat for years while they have the King of Opus Dei running amuck on the court. What’s not to like?

But, let me ask you, when has Bush ever done a strategic retreat on anything? Homeland security is the only thing I can think of and I think that stemmed from a belated realization that they really would like to have some fat patronage jobs and a new entrenched “security” bureaucracy that tilted Republican by nature and temperament. It wasn’t a plan.

Here is how this White House views itself:

President Bush subscribes to the momentum theory of politics: that success breeds success, and political capital accrues to the one who spends political capital.

That comes from this column by Dan Froomkin which examines that stunning article in which it is revealed that the National Security Council has hired an expert on public opinion during wartime. That expert, widely quoted in various places for the last couple of years, pretty much sums up what the White House believes about the war — and I think what they believe about governing generally. You govern by giving people the impression that you are winning:

Yes, the very same White House that outwardly exudes contempt for polls has in fact recently hired a prominent academic pollster onto the National Security Council staff and has concluded that the key to public support for the war is not the number of casualties in Iraq, nor whether the war was right or wrong — but whether people feel like we’re going to win.

Being willing to stage a retreat — particularly on something about which the base is rabid and out of control — at a time when his popularity is sliding precipitously is not believable to me. I think they are desperate to show strength and get a big win that makes the Dems look weak. That is their theory of governance. The more you win the more people love you.

In their minds it’s the public perception of losing on Bolton, social security, Schiavo and Iraq that is causing their problems, not Bolton, social security, Schiavo or Iraq themselves. I think they want a big fight and they expect a big win. And they want that win to “create political capital” with which to consolidate their majority.

Update: Jeffrey Dubner says the same thing:

But this president will not allow himself to appear to be defeated on something so important. He certainly won’t set himself up for failure, as Brad predicts, even if such a failure is deemed to be a PR victory that results in an ultra-conservative justice anyway. Just not, as his father might say, gonna do it.

Correction: The Bork-Scalia analogy is entirely wrong. Scalia was confirmed before Bork. But he still is the King of Opus Dei running amuck — and they’d like nothing more than to have a few more of him. Luckily, while he was confirmed 98-0, the Democrats have since wised up. The question is whether they have the will to “Bork” from the position of a minority party.

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Nucular Summer

O’Connor Retires. I’m sure everyone realizes this, but the fact that it’s O’Connor means that we are going to have a political bloodbath. If it had been Rehnquist, it would have been no harm no foul if Junior had placated his base with another wingnut. O’Connor is a swing vote, which means that the theocrats and the anti-environmentalists and the corporate whores have a chance to do some real damage. The base is slavering for a chance to overturn Roe vs Wade and Karl needs to give them something for all their trouble.

I would suggest that everyone get ready to bombard the “gang of fourteen” the minute that Bush announces his choice, who I have little doubt will be completely unacceptable. They want this fight. It’s the essence of their play to the base strategy and it gets the news off Iraq.

There can be no compromise on this seat.

7 Republicans:

* John McCain
* Lindsey Graham
* John Warner
* Olympia Snowe
* Susan Collins
* Mike DeWine
* Lincoln Chafee

7 Democrats:

* Joe Lieberman
* Robert Byrd
* Ben Nelson
* Mary Landrieu
* Daniel Inouye
* Mark Pryor
* Ken Salazar

Oh, and perhaps today is a good day to recall that while Sandra day O’Connor will always be remembered as the first female Supreme Court Justice, her legacy was tarnished irreparably during election 2000:

[A]t an election-night party on Nov. 7, surrounded for the most part by friends and familiar acquaintances, [Justice O’Connor] let her guard drop for a moment when she heard the first critical returns shortly before 8 p.m. Sitting in her hostess’s den, staring at a small black-and-white television set, she visibly started when CBS anchor Dan Rather called Florida for Al Gore. “This is terrible,” she exclaimed. She explained to another partygoer that Gore’s reported victory in Florida meant that the election was “over,” since Gore had already carried two other swing states, Michigan and Illinois.

Moments later, with an air of obvious disgust, she rose to get a plate of food, leaving it to her husband to explain her somewhat uncharacteristic outburst. John O’Connor said his wife was upset because they wanted to retire to Arizona, and a Gore win meant they’d have to wait another four years. O’Connor, the former Republican majority leader of the Arizona State Senate and a 1981 Ronald Reagan appointee, did not want a Democrat to name her successor. Two witnesses described this extraordinary scene to Newsweek. Responding through a spokesman at the high court, O’Connor had no comment.

Jeffrey Toobin reported this:

On . . . the day of the Supreme Court’s first opinion on the election, O’Connor and her husband had attended a party for about thirty people at the home of a wealthy couple named Lee and Julie Folger. When the subject of the election controversy came up, Justice O’Connor was livid. “You just don’t know what those Gore people have been doing,” she said. “They went into a nursing home and registered people that they shouldn’t have. It was outrageous.” It was unclear where the justice had picked up this unproved accusation, which had circulated only in the more eccentric right-wing outlets, but O’Connor recounted the story with fervor.

She had to stay another four years just to save face after that, but now she’s free to let Bush appoint her replacement, which was always her intention. That man owes her big time, both for his presidency and now the chance to shape the supreme court for a generation. Her tenure as the first female justice will very likely end with a replacement who will vote to overturn Roe vs Wade. That’s quite an achievement.

Still, despite her partisanship, she’s been incoherent enough that she could be counted on to at least give some cases a 50/50 chance at a decent outcome. Another Scalia and we are entering a new dark age.

It’s probable that Bush will be looking at replacing her with another woman. On the other hand, being Republicans, they will likely think that having one token female on the court is enough and use her “slot” for a more electorally friendly minority. In any case, I’ll be very surprised if he chooses someone in the least bit acceptable to anyone but the James Dobbsians. The want to set loose the hounds of hell.

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Scariest Thing I’ve Read All Week

Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said the changes would allow Mr. Negroponte to wield influence and seek information down to the level of each of the F.B.I.’s field offices, though she noted that the attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, would remain responsible for ensuring that intelligence activities in the United States did not violate American law.

I feel so much safer now.

Via Daou Report and Corrente

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Thug Life

It’s bad enough that that hideous little creep Tom Davis (R-jackboot) drops a horsehead in major league baseball’s bed saying that it shouldn’t give the DC franchise to an investment group that includes George Soros. The real insult is that he does it so openly to tilt the field to the president’s friend, fundraiser and former business partner in the Texas Rangers, Fred “count the Jews” Malek.

I know that it does no good to bring up Clinton rules and wonder what the allegedly responsible press would have made of such a thing if it had happened in 1993. We know that it would have been turned into a non-stop feeding frenzy with blond former prosecutors and strange looking Republican men with comb-overs dolefully wringing their hands night after night on Matthews as they bemoaned the corruption of mom, apple pie and Murika’s pastime by Bill and his corrupt hillbilly friends.

But you would think that a Republican congressman (with the clout to haul all the MLB owners in front of his kangaroo steroid committee again and ream them out for another 8 hours) publicly strong-arming them with threats to lift their anti-trust exemption and clearly indicating that he’d prefer they picked a Nixon stooge and Bush pal, would cause a little ripple. The only place I’ve seen any speculation about this is in the WaPo sports section:

You can’t help wondering what’s behind the outrageous attack on Soros, who isn’t even a major partner in the bid for the Nats. (Local entrepreneur Jon Ledecky is the real bidder.) Isn’t it strange that rival bidder Fred Malek, the head of the Washington Baseball club, just happens to be a very big GOP fundraiser? And isn’t it strange that, in a telephone interview, Davis went out of his way to praise Malek’s bid? And isn’t it strange that these attacks on Soros from Republicans came on the very day that Ledecky and his partners were being interviewed by MLB?

Forget Soros (although the irony is so thick you can slice it, considering the “jeweyness” of the whole thing.) Malek is the story. I know that the press thinks this Iraq thing and the whole Bush lying and incompetence thing is so, like, 2004. But can’t they even get it up to complain about baseball being threatened by Republican thugs? Not even that?

Now that I think about it, I’ve long noticed that sportwriters are among the last real journalists around. Whenever politics and sports converge they are the first ones who get to the essence of the story. Costas was tough last night on Larry King. Olbermann is always good. Since the political writers love the horse race stories so much maybe the major dailies should just have them switch places with the sports staff. It could be the answer to everybody’s problems.

Update: Jesse has more on Malek. And I see that TAPPED tilled this soil yesterday.

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Requiem For Jeff Gerth

I thought it was rather strange that Michael Tomasky wrote a column justifiably skewering Ed Klein for his shoddy journalism and then threw in this bit toward the end:

The problem runs deeper even than Klein. Today, with the explosion of Web sites, all sorts of propagandists and provocateurs who aren’t journalists can hide behind the label when it comes to First Amendment protection. Can they write anything they please about public figures, knowing that they can print lies as long as Sullivan is in force?

He explains himself today:

I didn’t mean to impugn the established liberal blogs, which I explained to Duncan Black when I ran into him just a few hours after seeing Markos. My list of bloggers to whom I was definitely not referring includes but is by no means limited to: Josh Marshall, Mark Schmitt, Matt (and all his cohorts, at Tapped of course and at TPMCafe), Markos, Duncan, Kevin Drum (and guests), Jerome Armstrong, Arianna Huffington et alia, Ezra Klein, &c &c &c.

My point, which I think remains valid, was that the blogosphere in general is a milieu that is somewhat more likely than the milieu of traditional journalism to produce reckless error.

I don’t think that’s possible. I’ve read a lot of garbage on-line, but none that had the kind of corporate backing and public relations push that Klein’s book has gotten from a mainstream publisher — and Klein’s book, as Tomasky points out, is just filled with lies. And mainstream news organizations are giving him a national platform with which to spread them.

The only time that I’m aware of outright reckless error is from the rightwing blogosphere during the Rather scandal — and mainstream journalism was just as bad and rewarded them for it.

The truth is that after watching the three ring circus known as the Whitewater scandals remain uncorrected even after all this time — and reading pathetic explanations like this from top Washington reporter John Harris — it’s clear that mainstream news constantly commits reckless errors, on both the micro and macro level, and then rationalizes them with all the aplomb of a second grader caught with his hand in the cookie jar:

People tend to forget, for understandable reasons because the Lewinsky scandal was such a sensational affair, that 1997 was in its own way a very sullen, snippy, disagreeable year in the relationship between the White House and the press. Most news organizations — the Washington Post included — were devoting lots of resources, lots of coverage, to the campaign fund-raising scandal which grew out of the ’96 campaign, and there were a lot of very tantalizing leads in those initial controversies. In the end they didn’t seem to lead anyplace all that great. But there were tons of questions raised that certainly, to my mind, merited aggressive coverage.

The White House was unbelievably resentful — they thought it was much ado about nothing, they thought that this was a scandal-obsessed press corps. Mike McCreary — and he’s a really great guy — even before Lewinsky he was in a really pissy mood and I don’t blame him for him for it, and I don’t doubt that it was unpleasant and that his feelings of resentment were genuine, but he was snapping back at us, angry phone calls and whatnot. From the White House’s vantage point the whole thing was not on the level, they thought this was standard political fund-raising that was undeniably a little sloppy but wasn’t that big a deal, and we were trying to turn it into the next Watergate.

It was much ado about nothing. The fund-raising scandals didn’t rise from the 96 campaign. They rose from the right wing noise machine like all the rest. And what he fails to mention is that this was after four long years of one David Bossie/American Spectator bullshit spoonfed psuedo-scandal after another.

In a cluttered office tucked away in one of the many red-brick office condominiums that ring Washington, D.C., David Bossie, source par excellence to journalists dredging the Whitewater swamp, handles one of the eighteen calls he says he gets each hour. This one is from Bruce Ingersoll, a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal. The discussion centers on bonds. “I have a whole file on bond transactions,” Bossie tells Ingersoll. “I will get a report on what I find. I know you are trying to move quickly on this. You want to come out before they come out.” A few minutes later Bossie says, “I don’t know what I have to give you,” but promises to spend the next couple of hours going through materials. “You’re on deadline, I understand that.” He then points Ingersoll in another direction. “Have you done anything on Beverly? [Presumably that is Beverly Bassett Schaffer, former Arkansas Securities Commissioner.] You guys ought to look into that. There will be lawsuits against the Rose law firm,” he adds.

All that has been known since the above article was written for Columbia Journalism Review in 1994 and was fully explored by 1996, when Gene Lyons published the articles that became “Fools For Scandal” in Harper’s magazine.

The press performed abominably throughout that period and all the way through the 2000 election, using the same methods of accepting Republican gossip and smears as the basis for their stories:

In the film we see RNC glee as AP accepts their oppo research on a Gore misstatement during the first debate . During their months of filming BBC producers also observed producers for NBC’s Tim Russert among others calling to enquire if the team had any new material. This was apparently normal trading on both sides.

RNC researcher Griffin comments in the film: “It’s an amazing thing when you have topline producers and reporters calling you and saying ‘we trust you…. we need your stuff.'”

And it’s not like it’s exactly covered itself with glory since then. (Got WMD?)

Really, the blogopshere is the least of journalism’s credibility problems. And while I’m sure that it’s quite frightening to think of rogue character assassins running around the internet smearing people, it’s very hard to see how they could be any worse than the mainstream press already is.

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