Blogs: Peek: More on Rove

I have a feeling that this is going to drag on until after the 2006 elections.

Is anyone else aware that Patrick Fitzgerald is the same prosecutor that went after Lynn Stewart? Lynn Stewart is a communist who was prosecuted by the Bush administration for the crime of representing her client. Although the client is a convicted terrorist, the Bushits didn’t like the way she represented him and found herself on trial. Her partner, the former Attorney General Ramsey Clark was not charged. Now, how many defense lawyers are going to feel inhibited and intimidated the next time a terrorist suspect is on trial.

After the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, several members of the Senate motioned that the Government should not jail the two journalists, Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller, who refused to speak to the Grand Jury. The motion failed because some members refused to support it. The Senators who opposed the motion refused to identify themselves on the record. Can you say hypocrisy?

The blog raises some very good questions. Why does Robert Novak still walk the streets? Why has there been no firing, or at least suspension, of anyone in the White House if Novak had named them. If Fitzgerald has told the Supreme Court that the investigation is complete then why is he still going after Cooper and Miller.

For some reason this is beginning to sound like a RICO offense.

Hey, where is Rather and the guy from newsweek??? They can alweays make up a story to fit the facts and call it the truth.

Get off the “so-called Liberal Media” rant.

Bring Dan Rather back indeed -that was funny. Was Dan and his open Liberal bias only “so-called”, and wasn’t / isn’t CBS generally considered part of the Media?

Ron

What’s your point Ron? SO you think it’s a good thing that the Office of the President might be involved in revealing the names of our own CIA operatives as political payback? That’s cool with you?

So far it’s not clear that Rove has done anything illegal. David Corn at The Nation has an excellent article on this. One possibility is that someone else mentions that Plame works for the CIA and got her husband the job, and then Rove passed it along not knowing she’s an undercover agent. Also, if what Rove has done is a crime, then why souldn’t the reporters be thrown in jail? They are helping to coverup treason in that case. A prosecutor tasked with finding the source of the leak needs to know for sure who said what, and the main stories all referred to multiple sources.

I’ve been noticing a LOT or recent spin on what Rove did or did not do and whether he’s guilty of anything at all since he never had any sort of top secret clearance and may have been doing nothing more than passing along a rumor. This ignores the political payback aspect of this onerous action. There was motive and this was no ‘accident.” It will be funny to watch him wrangle himself off the hook yet again. He’s like Lucy and the football.

Writing and reporting is a tough business. I think blogging will help the press do a better job. Perhaps it will force them to do a better job.
I read that “Russia sees the arrest of Judith Miller as a restrain on journalists’ rights in the U.S.”, so I guess there is a concern internationally about compelling testimony by incarceration. That’s how I read it anyways. It seems to me that the information is more important than the source. You should consider the source, but if something criminal is done then investigators should be able to verify facts without knowing sources.

Journalists verify facts based on shakey sources. A reporter could have many sources, including other journalists who share information with them. If a reporters source was another reporter, it would seem professional not to reveal the source. And smart too! In the case of Ms. Miller, the whole thing sounds like a case of guilt by association. There is a huge budget for fake news, so maybe your source could turn out to be fake, so you still need to stick with the facts. Somebody being jailed for protecting a source of information who may be a colleague will anger many people. The government has sources of information that they don’t have to reveal, because doing so could put the sources in danger or compromise an investigation. If I send you hard to get information and say don’t quote me on that, you shouldn’t quote me. As a journalist, you should verify the information and possibly expand on it. I may be the source of your story and not be mentioned in the story. I am a source, but by not revealing who I am you have not misled your readers or editors. I could of been Ms. Millers source, but I’ll let the facts tell the rest of the story. My sources can’t be verified, they are dead. Those are the breaks in the news business. The facts never die. Ms. Miller is in jail, the sources may be dead and the truth goes marching on. Maybe she is protecting the innocent or being jailed for being innocent. If the sources are dead, you won’t be able to verify much anyways, so the sources don’t make the story. I can’t see why the investigators are so interested in the sources a writer uses. I could be dead by the time this information spreads around the globe, so don’t quote me! Live free or die.