Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Libby On The Label

According to Murray Waas, Scooter told Fitzgerald that he met with Miller on July 8th. But he has not given Judith Miller the specific waiver she seeks to talk to the prosecutors.

It’s time for the press to go to the mattresses and demand an explanation from the white house.

The new disclosure that Miller and Libby met on July 8, 2003, raises questions regarding claims by President Bush that he and everyone in his administration have done everything possible to assist Fitzgerald’s grand-jury probe. Sources close to the investigation, and private attorneys representing clients embroiled in the federal probe, said that Libby’s failure to produce a personal waiver may have played a significant role in Miller’s decision not to testify about her conversations with Libby, including the one on July 8, 2003.

Libby signed a more generalized waiver during the early course of the investigation granting journalists the right to testify about their conversations with him if they wished to do so. At least two reporters — Walter Pincus of The Washington Post and Tim Russert of NBC — have testified about their conversations with Libby.

But Miller has said she would not consider providing any information to investigators about conversations with Libby or anyone else without a more specific, or personal, waiver. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, has previously said Miller had not been granted “any kind of a waiver … that she finds persuasive or believes was freely given.”

Libby has never offered to provide such a personalized waiver for Miller, according to three legal sources with first-hand knowledge of the matter. Joseph A. Tate, an attorney for Libby, declined to comment for this story.

[…]

At least two attorneys representing private clients who are embroiled in the Plame probe also privately questioned whether or not President Bush had encouraged Libby to provide a personalized waiver for Miller in an effort to obtain her cooperation.

In a memorandum distributed to White House staff members shortly after the investigation became known, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who at the time was White House counsel, wrote, “The president has directed full cooperation with this investigation.” Bush himself said: “[I]f there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.”

Congressman Rush Holt, Democrat of New Jersey and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, while sidestepping the specifics as to whether Bush should order Libby to provide a personalized waiver for Miller, said in an interview Friday evening: “I would say the president has the power to help us get to the bottom of this matter. And we in Congress want to do this not so much for what has happened but to prevent such a thing from happening again.”

This is bullshit. The white house cannot get away with saying they are cooperating with the prosecutor by not talking — and then not require the staff to fully cooperate with the prosecutor.

“I want to know the truth,” Bush told reporters in September 2003 after news of the investigation had burst into headlines. “If anybody has got any information, inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business.”

Here’s Scotty from July 11th:

Q: Does the president stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in a leak of the name of a CIA operative?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked related to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point.

And as I’ve previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it.

The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. And as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren’t going to comment on it while it is ongoing.

Now that it’s been reported that Libby is the source Miller is protecting the media should demand that Libby free their sister from jail.

“Scott, Judy Miller is languishing in a DC jail because the vice president’s chief of staff refuses to grant her a specific waiver. The prosecutor has told federal judges that he needs to talk to her. Is this what the president calls cooperating with the investigation?”

There really is no good reason why Libby hasn’t provided a specific waiver for Judy if he told Fitzgerald he talked to her.

Unless he lied to the prosecutor about what was said, that is.

And if Judy gets a specific waiver she has no more excuse to play Jeanne d’Arc. If she still won’t squawk, the NY Times will have to finally admit that they have employed a neocon operative as a reporter.

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Sit Tight

A thought to ponder as we debate whether we should be moving toward more social conservatism. The number one Republican in the US Senate just endorsed stem cell research and the number three Republican in the Senate just backed off his previous support for intelligent design.

This would indicate to me that these two politicians, one of whom is running for president and the other who is trying to keep his seat in a swing state, have seen numbers that indicate the religious right is hurting their chances. They are sistah sojah-ing like madmen pretty damn early in the game.

I suspect that some democratic strategists think this is a good reason for us to “meet them in the middle” by running as social conservatives — just without James Dobson. But anyone who thinks this is someone who hasn’t been watching politics for the last 20 years.

We should sit tight. We’re already in the middle, right where most of the public is. It’s just that the public didn’t realize it until recently. When the wingnuts start devouring each other we should tie them together and run against the whole lot. I know this because I watched it happen in the 80’s. To us.

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Good For Thee But Not For Me

The United States’ envoy in Iraq delivered a warning on Saturday to Shi’ite Islamist leaders, propelled to power by U.S. forces, not to use a new constitution to impose discriminatory laws by majority rule.

Hmmmmm.

JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relating to marriage .

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:

“Article —

“SECTION 1. Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”

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The Palmeiro Defense

In related news, Karl Rove returned to testify before the grand jury investigating the Plame leak today. Rove testified that while he indeed did leak Valerie Plame’s name to reporters, he has no idea how it happened.

“I still don’t know what caused me to do it,” Rove said. “I know I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t even think I did it, but I did. I’m not a crazy person. We were going to get our war anyway. It makes no sense.”

Read the whole thing.

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Confession Is Good For The Soul

In anticipation of tomorrows Press The Meat, I think that guests should be required to read Swopa and Fishbowl DC. Maybe Ashleigh Blitzer ought to see if he can get Monsignor Tim on his show.

It turns out, contrary to my post below, that NBC was a little bit, shall we say … lawyerly, with its statement of Russert’s involvement:

Mr. Russert told the Special Prosecutor that, at the time of that conversation, he did not know Ms. Plame’s name or that she was a CIA operative and that he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby. Mr. Russert said that he first learned Ms. Plame’s name and her role at the CIA when he read a column written by Robert Novak later that month.

What that statement very cleverly leaves open is that Russert did tell Libby that “Joseph Wilson’s wife” was a CIA “employee.”

Look, this is getting stupid. There is no reason on earth that Tim Russert should not be required to say right out if he repeated gossip to Lewis Libby about Joe Wilson and his wife. It means that he’s a dirt-dishing little scumbag but it has no bearing on his legal culpability. One could easily understand why he would think that repeating this tidbit to a man who had the highest security clearance wouldn’t exactly mean he was spilling state secrets.

I would have thought that since all this has been hashed over in great detail these last few weeks that the “professionals” in the mainstream press would have thought it was worthwhile to pursue — even if it meant that the leader of the kewl kids was confronted with his own words and asked to explain. After all, that is what he does every single Sunday morning to whichever poor schmuck submits him or herself to his grilling.

As Atrios eloquently points out this morning, this absurd idea that celebrity journalists aren’t public figures is laughable in itself. But the idea reaches total absurdity when you consider that these celebrity journalists are players in the biggest scandal of the last five years. When you have these journalists being called before Grand Juries, making deals with special prosecutors and distributing carefully worded lawyerly statements — they are just like any other citizen in that situation; they are witnesses to a possible crime. I wish that the press were so solicitous of private citizens who don’t have their own TV shows when they camp out on their doorsteps screaming for comment.

Tim Russert gave a very lawyerly statement about what he told the special prosecutor. He has never been asked to expand on it or clarify it, to my knowledge. That is journalistic malpractice.

Here’s what they should do, it’s really quite simple.

Mr Russert, did you ever tell Scooter Libby in any way shape or form that Joseph Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA?

Oh, and then guys,if he tries to answer by saying that he didn’t know her name or what her role was at the CIA, follow up. Be reporters and persist. Ask him if he mentioned Joe Wilson’s wife to Libby at all. If he says yes, then ask if he mentioned where she worked. It’s not hard.

Update: I see Arianna beat me to this.

…frankly, this week, instead of coming up with questions for Tim, I’d like to hear him give some long-overdue answers about his still ill-defined involvement in Plamegate.

And I’m not the only one feeling this way. Earlier this week, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sydney Schanberg called on Russert and all the other reporters involved in the story (yes, that includes you Bob Novak) to “tell us everything”: “Tim Russert cuts a large figure in Washington,” wrote Shanberg. “He should be a big man now and give us some details; why not agree to be interviewed by someone as probing as he?”

[…]

So what do you say, Tim? Why not put Roberts’ faith on hold for a week and restore the public’s faith in you by putting yourself in the Meet the Press hot seat? As Schanberg said of his fellow reporters: “We have no rational explanation for calling regularly on government and corporate giants to release all possible information to the public if we ourselves decline to release the details about our roles and our processes when they are germane to the story.… The public has a right to know; isn’t that our mantra?”

Considering how well Bob Novak has responded to being on the receiving end of the cattle prod, I suspect that The Padre will not take to well to being “probed” with his own petard. But it is worthwhile to put pressure on these guys to start leveling with the public. I know that it’s too much to ask that this clubby little world be exposed, but we have to try.

I’ll agree with Kevin on this to the extent that the press may be better than it used to be in many respects, but that’s not really the problem. With the rise of public relations, the cacophany of information and the overwhelming power of marketing we need an independent press more than we used to to help us filter through the bullshit so that we can maintain our democracy. Instead, they seem to be drifting toward entertainment values which are by definition controlled by the very forces that are making it difficult for the public to see their world clearly. The last fifteen years of political coverage have been dominated by tabloid circuses or jingoistic parades. They need to try harder.

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The Terminator

In case anyone’s wondering if Pat Fitzgerald is really as much of a prosecution machine as people think he is, there is actually little doubt. He seems to really like putting away dirty politicians of all stripes. In fact, he seems to be mowing down the entire corrupt Illinois political system in a thoroughly bipartisan way:

If ever U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald leaves Chicago, I figure that Mayor Richard Daley, his Democratic machine and his Republican friends in the Illinois political combine will pop for champagne at Gibsons in Rosemont.

[…]

“I’m just going to do my job until someone tells me otherwise,” Fitzgerald said at a news conference in which he announced the indictments of more combine boys.

“I love my job. I’m very, very lucky to work with the people behind me and the people behind that, and I have no plans to do anything else.”

Federal authorities charged three political insiders Wednesday with extorting money from investment companies working with the Teachers Retirement System pension fund.

According to the indictments, in trying to shake down a Virginia investment firm on behalf of Republican Stuart Levine, top Democratic fundraiser and lawyer Joe Cari is alleged to have said:

“This is how things are done in Illinois.”

Another lawyer, Steven Loren, also was charged in the shakedown scheme. He and Cari are now cooperating with prosecutors. Levine, who was indicted on multiple counts, was recently indicted in another alleged kickback scam on the state’s Health Facilities Planning Board.

Years ago, some questioned if there was an Illinois combine, a ruling bipartisan clique gorging on public money, using political muscle to fill their pockets. I don’t think many people question that anymore.

According to the grand jury, some Democrats and Republicans work together just fine. They’re not divided by opposing ideologies. Instead, they’re bound by a common interest: cash.

The combine fought to stop Fitzgerald from coming to Chicago from New York. They ran former U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.) out of politics for the sin of installing Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) in the job of federal hammer in Chicago.

Lately, there’s been speculation that the president would lean on Fitzgerald and remove him because Fitzgerald is a presidential irritant, acting as special counsel in Washington. He’s investigating Bush administration officials for reportedly leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Presidential political adviser Karl Rove and others in Rove’s sphere have been questioned in the investigation. It is assumed Rove will seek revenge. U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) wants to hold Senate hearings to question Fitzgerald about his investigation. These hearings are seen as an extension of Rove’s long hand.

And in Chicago, Fitzgerald has the Outfit upset, not to mention Streets & San, the mayor’s office and Daley’s own 11th Ward organization, and the Republican clique of former Gov. George Ryan. Fitzgerald and Chicago FBI chief Rob Grant are expected to announce more corruption charges in another case on Thursday morning.

So they’re giving everybody agita. With all this going on, all these investigations and all the political interests he’s threatened by pursuing cases, Fitzgerald was asked the big question.

Do you want to stay?

“I’m not going to start lobbying for a job,” he said. “I’m just saying that I’m very happy with my job, very grateful I have it, and I’m just going to keep working.”

He wasn’t lobbying. And he wasn’t being slick about it. He was just answering the question, appearing to be slightly embarrassed to be talking about himself.

I don’t know Fitzgerald well. But I can see he is uncomfortable with being cast as some knight on a white horse. He’s no such thing. He’s much more dangerous.

He’s a federal prosecutor who does not want to run for governor or a big job in a top law firm. He’s not whispering that he’d like to be made a federal judge. He doesn’t want to be somebody’s rainmaker.

There’s nothing more frightening to the combine than someone without an appetite they can feed.

If he hands down indictments the long arm of Karl Rove is going to morph into a thousand tentacles intent upon bringing this guy down. Within minutes you will see every talking point the Democrats used against Ken Starr being regurgitated by right-wing mouthpieces as if they just made it up that morning. It’s one of their favorite (and most useful) tactics — use the other side’s rhetoric against them. They take advantage of the ear worms of repetitive political rhetoric which a lot of people then just automatically accept as conventional wisdom.

And if you think you’ve seen Republicans whining and snivelling about being victimized before now, you ain’t seen nothin’ until you see them shriek like little old ladies about being persecuted by the jack-booted thugs. If and when that happens, I hope that the liberal pundits have the wisdom to turn the tables on them this time and call them out for being a bunch of bedwetting sissies. Karl Rove needs to take it like a man. There’s a war on. If he’d just apologise, maybe we could move on …

‘N what about the rule ‘o law?

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Jujitsu Death Blow

Blogenlust’s Law states …

As an online discussion among wingnuts grows longer, the probability that a Clinton will be blamed for something approaches 1 (i.e., certainty).

Here’s the example John cites:

The left appears to have lost its appetite for the Plamegate scandal. This, in itself, is more than sufficient reason for conservatives to pursue the matter aggressively. The left has much to hide in this affair. Now that they have done us the service of making Plamegate a national issue, let us employ Saul Alinsky’s principle of “political jiu-jitsu” and re-direct the left’s own momentum against it.

Of particular interest is the odd connection between Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and would-be president Hillary Clinton. Cooper is the reporter who made an elaborate show of pretending that he was ready to go to jail to “protect” his “source” Karl Rove. In fact, we now know that Rove had given Cooper a blanket release to reveal his name some eighteen months before Cooper finally revealed it. So why did Cooper pretend that he only received permission at the last minute, just before he was to be jailed for contempt? And why did major media assist Cooper in his pretense?

Plainly, the Democrats’ media allies were trying to distort the facts to cast Rove in a bad light. But to what end? Such an elaborate deception could not have unfolded on its own. Someone had to orchestrate it. But who?

One hint may come from the fact that Hooper’s wife, Mandy Grunwald, is a former spinmeister for the Clinton White House and a close confidante of Hillary. Her father, Henry Grunwald, was formerly editor of Time magazine, and wrote the first major editorial calling for Richard Nixon’s resignation (hat tip, Sacajaweau).

[…]

It would seem that the apple does not fall far from the tree. Like her father before her, Mandy Grunwald now finds herself at the vortex of what appears to be an effort to undermine our commander-in-chief at a critical phase of a major war.

How likely does it seem, gentle reader, that Matt Cooper failed to discuss his Plamegate work with his wife? And how likely does it seem that Mandy Grunwald failed to keep Hillary’s war room advised of her husband’s progress?

To put it another way, what did Hillary know and when did she know it?

I hadn’t thought about it before, but it’s perfectly obvious that Hitlery and her minions in the liberal media hatched this clever plot to implicate the White House in the outing of a CIA agent — in order to help the terrorists. My God, it’s been right in front of our faces all this time!

I’m reeling from the devastating cleverness of that move. My head is spinning. All is lost, my friends. All. Is. Lost. I’m joining the other side. They were always right. I was always wrong. They have won three elections in five years and I realize that we can never defeat them again. They are too smart for us.

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Uhm no — He’s Just An Idiot

Bush’s loyalty raises doubts about his political judgment

“It seems that President Bush is falling into the Nixon trap – his administration can do no wrong. His allies and people who support him can do no wrong,” said Robert Dallek, a presidential historian. “Palmeiro is above suspicion, Rove is not to be questioned, John Bolton is a stand-up guy.

“The danger is he divorces himself from public reality, political reality, and it erodes his ability to lead the country,” Dallek said.

It’s not that his administration can do no wrong. It’s that he can do no wrong. If he picked these people for his administration or for his friends, thay are, by definition, good people who are above suspicion. To say otherwise would be to admit that his judgment is imperfect and that is impossible. Dear Leader is an infallible child.

Several analysts said the Palmeiro situation illustrates that point. Bush took a strong stand against steroids in his 2004 State of the Union address, demanding that major league sports take tougher action to eliminate steroid use by athletes.

“The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football and other sports is dangerous and it sends the wrong message – that there are shortcuts to accomplishment and that performance is more important than character,” Bush said.

But when news of Palmeiro’s positive drug test and 10-day suspension by Major League Baseball became public, Bush almost instantly backed the ballplayer, saying Palmeiro spoke truthfully on March 17 when he wagged his finger at the
House Government Reform Committee and emphatically denied ever using steroids.

Bush’s fondness for Palmeiro – who recently became only the fourth major league player to slam more than 500 home runs and 3,000 base hits – dates back to when Palmeiro played for the Rangers under Bush’s ownership.

“Rafael Palmeiro is a friend. He testified in public and I believe him,” Bush said Monday. “He’s the kind of person that’s going to stand up in front of the klieg lights and say he didn’t use steroids, and I believe him. Still do.”

Bush’s quick defense seemed contradictory to some, in light of his previous tough talk on steroids.

“His defense in this case, so quickly, seemed like an about-face, from taking a stand to a ridiculous statement a fan might make to another fan in a bar,” said Richard Lapchick, chairman of the DeVos Sports Business Management Program at the University of Central Florida. “It certainly didn’t seem like he thought that one through.”

How unusual. And he’s usually so intellectually thorough.

Stephen Hess, a political scientist at George Washington University in Washington, believes Bush’s judgment isn’t clouded by loyalty. The president had no problem in dismissing Lawrence Lindsey, his economic adviser during the 2000 campaign and the head of his Council of Economic Advisers until his ouster in 2002.

“That showed me he’ll carry loyalty to a point – which is part of what presidents do,” Hess said.

Of course, Lindsey was let go not long after he estimated publicly that a war in
Iraq could cost $200 billion, far above Bush loyalists’ line at the time, which may have been seen as disloyal. Iraq war costs will exceed $200 billion in the next year.

And he was fat. His loyalty doesn’t extend that far.

Honestly, this blind defense of Palmiero has little to do with loyalty. It’s about Bush’s faith based approach to everything. If he believes it, it must be true. He does not use reason to come to conclusions. He makes decisions based on feelings and beliefs and “instinct.” In this case, his instinct is that Palmiero is a good guy and therefore could not have lied. His “instinct” is that creationism makes sense and therefore, is as legitimate as evolution. His “instinct” was that Saddam was a threat and therefore, we had to invade.

We have a man with a child’s mind running this country. Millions of us can see this as clearly as we can see his face on our television screens. People can call me an elitist and a snob for pointing this out but I will never stop. It’s like telling me it’s rude to notice that the sun came up this morning or that gravity exists. It is observable fact that this president is intellectually stunted. I’m not going to pretend otherwise so that certain people’s feelings don’t get hurt. I’ll lose my mind.

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Lawyered Up

It’s almost spooky that I’ve been writing about Novak all this week — even before he had his hissy fit yesterday. Perhaps I have some sort of psychic powers of which I’ve been unaware up to now. I hope so. If this works out I’ll get back in the market.

Actually, there is a more prosaic explanation. I’ve been writing about Bob Novak all week because he wrote an odd column about the Plame case on Monday. It was the first time he’s written anything about it in many months. And he said that he’d done it against his lawyers’ wishes. Atrios is reporting a rumor that Novak is being called before the Grand Jury all of a sudden. I would suspect that if it’s true, it’s because of something he wrote in that column.

We all know that it is quite strange that he had not been called before (although we don’t know that for sure.) It’s even more strange that he seems to have cooperated. Otherwise, unless Pat Fitzgerald was the most incompetent boob in the DOJ, he would have been in the same boat as Matt Cooper and Judith Miller. It’s the nature of the “cooperation” that’s most curious.

Of the major media players, Walter Pincus has spoken to the public and the prosecutor. Matt Cooper has spoken to the public and the prosecutor. Tim Russert made a deal and spoke with the prosecutors and NBC released a statement to the public relaying the substance of his conversation. Judith Miller hasn’t spoken to either the prosecutor or the public and is in jail. Robert Novak, the only one who actually published the leak information, hasn’t spoken to the public but (we assume) he has spoken to the prosecutor. He has repeatedly said that he cannot discuss the case in any way because his lawyers have advised him not to say anything publicly.

Why would that be? Here’s one little hint, although it may just be an accidental turn of phrase. The day after Novak had his little contretemps with Ed Henry in June, miracle of miracles, the NY Times actually did a tiny little story on why Novak has not been on the hotseat like every other reporter in town. And Novak’s publisher said this:

Among those defending Mr. Novak yesterday was John Cruickshank, publisher of The Sun-Times.

“We, as news people, never want to be in a position of saying, No comment,” Mr. Cruickshank said. “But he cannot respond and at the same time abide by the legal strategy his counsel has been recommending.”

Why is his legal counsel recommending a legal strategy at all? Nobody else is using that excuse. Obviously, as a journalist he cannot use the white house excuse that the prosecutor has requested he not talk about the case because … well, that would make him the worst kind of journalistic sissy there is. Especially compared to macho Judy Miller. While it’s true that Miller is practising shoddy journalism by refusing to write what she knows (without revealing her source) she at least is following the general principle that the press shouldn’t knuckle under to the government, which is, after all the reason for the confidentiality rule in the first place.

Novak hasn’t upheld anything at all. He’s almost certainly given up his sources and also refused to answer questions. He is being totally unprincipled. It’s left him open to being called a hack and a liar and he’s restrained from responding by his “legal strategy.” It’s clearly driving him crazy. And that leads me to believe that his lawyers know that there is a grave danger that if Bob keeps talking he’s going to find himself in a big heap of trouble.

It’s possible that Novak wrote something he shouldn’t have in that column on Monday. Not knowing what he’s told the authorities I don’t know specifically what it said that would be cause for worry but Bob is clearly having a very hard time with the fact that he is not allowed to spin his way out of this defend himself :

Though frustrated, I have followed the advice of my attorneys and written almost nothing about the CIA leak over two years because of a criminal investigation by a federal special prosecutor. The lawyers also urged me not to write this. But the allegation against me is so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist that I feel constrained to reply.

Again, why would Novak have to be so careful? He’s not covered under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act nor is he really prohibited from publishing classified information. His only reason for having to be so cautious is because he either has an immunity deal with the prosecution, which I sincerely doubt, or his lawyers believe that Fitzgerald thinks he may have lied to the authorities or obstructed justice.

Based on his meager public statements alone you can easily see why Fitzgerald would have ample reason to suspect him of participating in a cover-up. He’s been changing his story from day one. In his original column he said that Wilson was a fine, well qualified non-partisan, ex-diplomat and that the administration had told him that his wife suggested him for the mission. He explained a few days later, “I didn’t dig it out — they gave it to me — they thought it was significant.” Shortly thereafter, he changed his story and wrote that it had been just an “off-hand remark” in the midst of another conversation. Then when the justice department began its investigation he said he pursued the story because he was “curious” as to why a partisan Democrat like Joseph Wilson with no qualifications was sent on the mission — a characterization that is entirely at odds with what he actually wrote.

You can see why his lawyers wanted him to shut up. He tends to draw suspicion on himself every time he opens his mouth. And let’s not forget that Karl Rove and others, through their mouthpieces, have been using the same line with respect to other reporters like Cooper — “it was an offhand comment.” Indeed, the administration figures involved seem to want us to believe that they were just offhandedly mentioning this little factoid with no coordination or plan at all — to a reported half dozen elite DC journalists. Robert Novak, contrary to his earlier statements and the tenor of his original piece, seemed to want to enthusiastically back that up and imply that he was independently pursuing the story of the partisan democrat Joe Wilson’s trip all on his own. How very convenient.

And there is another aspect to this story as well. Novak seems to have finally lost the protective insular cloak of the celebrity proess corps brotherhood. But that doesn’t abslove them of their absurd silence all these months.

It is one thing for a reporter to withhold the names of his sources. It is quite another for a reporter to withhold information from the public to protect each other. But this case has shown in numerous ways that the press feels perfectly comfortable trafficking in gossip about a president’s sex life — and funneling that gossip through the foreign press and back to sleaze sites like Drudge in order to “get it out there.” But they have been remarkably willing to stay silent when their “stars” are involved in a legal tangle.

That’s one big reason why this ridiculous spectacle of Bob Novak and Tim Russert and Judith Miller the rest of these guys, who clearly have pertinent information, has been played out for two years as kabuki while the rest of us keep scratching our heads and wondering why they don’t just tell us what they know.

Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei changed the dynamic last week when they printed Bill Harlow’s comments about Novak. Novak lost his composure, both in print and then on television. He is a spoiled DC elder who believes that he is above the petty humiliations and character assassination he deals every day to politicians of whom he disapproves. He can’t believe that he has to sit back and let people trash his reputation while he’s constrained from responding by the possibility of legal consequences. Poor baby. Maybe he ought to spend some time in jail reading some of his columns and reviewing tapes of his Crossfire and Capital Gang appearances in which he ruthlessly destroyed Democrats for the last 40 years. Maybe he could write a novel about his experiences on the other side of the fence — where Bob Novak is subjected to … Bob Novak.

Update: Mark Leon Goldberg at TAPPED has a delicious little piece of speculation about Novak’s “cooperation” and his little temper tantrum yesterday:

Picking up on what Atrios hints at, if James Carville was engaging in some privy, insider goading when he told Robert Novak that he has to “show the right wingers that you are a stand-up guy, and The Wall Street Journal is watching your every move,” does that suggest that Novak already named names? If so, is the VRWC silently sharpening their knives in the event that Novak’s spilled the beans? Will they sacrifice one of their own?

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Leaning On The Bulldog

Josh Marshall wonders why Novak would have stomped off the set just because Ed Henry was planning to ask him about Plamegate (if that’s why he did it.) After all, Novak’s been successfully fending off questions about this for two years now.

I think he might be a little bit prickly because he didn’t want it generally known that his most recent column used false information not generated this time by “senior white house officials” but from a discredited cockheaded man-ho. Check out Peter Daou’s full report on the Gannon “expose” that Novak used as proof that the Kerry campaign “discarded” Joe Wilson.

It seems to me that it’s possible the mean old man just didn’t want to face the fact that he is a has-been journalist as well as a Republican hack who’s outlived his usefulness. Retirement must be looking pretty good.

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