Thursday, June 30, 2005

Whodunit?

I’m blown away. We may soon find out the name of the White House insider who illegally leaked the name of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame in an attempt to smear the truth-telling patriot Joe Wilson.

I won’t rehash the whole story, but basically the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of Judy Miller and Matt Cooper who were trying to protect the confidentiality of their law-breaking source and Time Magazine is caving. I’m of two minds about this case. One the one hand, I very strongly believe that we need to protect whistleblowers, and the only way they can blow whistles is if the media is permitted by this increasingly Orwellian government to protect their sources. On the other hand, this guy wasn’t blowing a whistle, he was both breaking the law and being a scumbag. As I wrote previously, there’s the right kind of source to protect, and the wrong kind. On a third hand, Judith Miller is a truly horrible reporter, and significantly contributed to the Bush propaganda machine when she wrote, to paraphrase - “My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw WMD at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious." And I was cruelly looking forward to her behind bars.

On a really creepy fourth hand, I really don’t understand why these two reporters were targeted while “Douschebag of Liberty” Robert Novak walks a free man. He’s the one who printed the story first.

Meanwhile, columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to identify CIA officer Valerie Plame in print, told CNN he "will reveal all" after the matter is resolved, adding that it is wrong for the government to jail journalists.
God, it makes my skin crawl to agree with that asshole. But it is wrong to jail journalists. Nice of him to reveal “all” after the whole situation is over though. What a saint. The bottom line - there clearly is someone in the White House who knows who leaked that name. The person who, you know, leaked the name. Why doesn’t he or she grow a pair of balls and end this charade? How can he stomach a situation where he’s allowing journalists go to jail as if we’re in the Soviet Union and not feel a little dirty? A lot dirty.

The true tragedy of this situation is that you know that the name is going to end up being some low-level staffer who will protect his own source – probably Karl Rove. Take one for the team and no doubt he’ll be rewarded with a huge salary in a cushy job at one of Bush’s cronies’ companies.

God bless America!

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