As the Bush dynasty - and its allied DeLay money machine - account for some of their misdeeds in court over the coming weeks, there will be a flood of reporting and, of course, endless spin from the Republicans' Mighty Wurlitzer echo chamber.
For those of us trying to keep our attention focused on the important elements involved, fortunately there are some important resources available to help us in that.
Journalist Murray Waas has become one of the "go-to" guys on the Valerie Plame/Karl Rove/Scooter Libby case. This article brings the picture up to date as of Thursday or so: Rove Assured Bush He Was Not Leaker by Murray Waas National Journal 10/07/05.
Waas also has a blog where he shares not only commentary but original reporting about the Plame case: Whatever already! If you're following the Plame case, that's probably the first place to check. Not that Waas is trying to post comprehensive links. It's rather that you're likely to hear about the really good stuff there.
Waas' Plame reporting has also appeared in the American Prospect Online. The Prospect also features other good reporting on the case as well, e.g., Michael Tomasky, "Remember The Memo", The American Prospect Online, Oct 3, 2005, and Greg Sargent, "Pulling Punches And Judy", The American Prospect Online, Oct 3, 2005.
Laura Rozen at her War and Piece blog has been keeping up with the Plame case fairly closely. And she's been following the DeLay crack-up, too.
No one has a better eye for Republican sleaze than Joe Conason, who publishes weekly at Salon and WorkingforChange.com, which reprints his weekly New York Observer column. He looked at Rove's dilemma just a couple of days ago: Rove's nightmare Salon 10/07/05.
All such speculation about criminal indictments must be tempered with caution. Nobody outside Fitzgerald's office can be certain what charges he is considering or whose fate he is mulling over. Even the highest-ranking figures in the Bush White House, which would deprive others of their constitutional rights and has already done so, deserve the presumption of innocence.
But certain persons in this government committed a serious offense against the national security of the United States to serve political partisan ends -- and they don't deserve to get away with it.
Conason has also been covering DeLay's troubles.
Major liberal blogs like Talking Points Memo, the related TPM Cafe and Daily Kos will be covering both cases, certainly. The capable bloggers at The Left Coaster will be following them, as well. And for political junkies who can't resist looking for the latest on how the cases are playing in public opinion, there are the capable analysts at the Donkey Rising blog. And Steve Clemons at the Washington Note blog has been following the Plame case.
Look for blogs that focus on intelligence issues to be commenting on the Plame case, like Sic Semper Tyrannis and No Quarter,.
And, naturally, my diligent blog partners at The Blue Voice will have plenty to say about these cases, too.
For reporting on the DeLay case that includes details that may not be included in wire service reports, the Austin American-Statesman and the Houston Chronicle have both been following that whole cesspool of corruption. The Texas Observer has been on this story for a while.
This story also provides related links: Making the case for, against DeLay: Lawyers aligned on both sides of indictments look at how the evidence might stack up in court by Laylan Copelin Austin American-Statesman 10/09/05.
John Dean, Nixon's former presidential chief counsel, knows a thing or two about political scandals and their legal implications. He normally publishes a column at Findlaw.com every couple of weeks. See their John Dean index. He just wrote about DeLay: The Case Against Tom DeLay: What HasHappened To Grand Jury Secrecy In Texas? 10/07/05. Despite the subtitle, he is not expressing support for "the Hammer":
One experienced criminal defense attorneys (from Texas, who is following the case closely) volunteered his surprise that DeLay was going around to radio and television shows to speak out on the matter. DeLay has visited Rush Limbaugh's show, Sean Hannity's, and Chris Mathews's "Hardball" to mention a few. At each stop, DeLay repeats his claim that the grand jury had no basis, no evidence whatsoever, to indict him.
"It is just not smart for a criminal defendant to blabber on," the attorney told me. "Those public statements will come back to haunt Tom DeLay in a courtroom, probably early next year." ...
One DeLay lie that seemed to stir several of the grand jurors into speaking out, was his false statement that the grand jury and the prosecutor had ignored him. In fact, they claimed, the grand jurors had requested DeLay be invited to appear, and Ronnie Earle had transmitted their request to DeLay, but DeLay refused, submitting an unsworn written statement in lieu of an appearance, which would have been required to be under oath.
Nevertheless, DeLay told Mathews: "[The grand jury and prosecutor] [n]ever ask[ed] me to testify, never doing anything for two years."
Once Plame case prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald goes public with whatever he's going to do, these older articles by Dean will be interesting references:
It Appears That Karl Rove Is In Serious Trouble Findlaw.com 07/15/05
A New Chapter In TheValerie Plame Case:Insights Gained From The New Edition of The Book by Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson Findlaw.com 05/20/05
The Serious Implications Of President Bush's Hiring A Personal Outside Counsel For The Valerie Plame Investigation Findlaw.com 06/04/04
Recently, the White House acknowledged that President Bush is talking with, and considering hiring, a non-government attorney, James E. Sharp. Sharp is being consulted, and may be retained, regarding the current grand jury investigation of the leak revealing the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA covert operative. ...
This action by Bush is a rather stunning and extraordinary development. The President of the United States is potentially hiring a private criminal defense lawyer. Unsurprisingly, the White House is doing all it can to bury the story, providing precious little detail or context for the President's action.
Which reminds me. Some enthusiasts in Left Blogostan are apparently allowing surges of adrenelin to make them imagine that what we generously call our "press corps" has seen the light like Saul on the road to Damascus. And now they've suddenly rediscovered their role as guardians of the liberties of the Republic. (You see some of this faith expressed at The Left Coaster.)
Sorry, friends, but that ain't happening. Yes, now that the Bush scam (aka, the Bush administration) is crumbling and the pieces are falling with loud crashes, our press corps is suddenly paying attention.
But the American press corps has become so deeply, dangerously dysfunctional over the last 15-20 years, as evidenced most dramatically by the Whitewater/Lewinsky hysteria, the events that Bob "the Daily Howler" Somersby refers to as the press' "War Against Gore" in 1999-2000, and the pathetic collapse of reporting in the lead-up to the Iraq War.
No one was a worse offender in the latter instance that "General Judy" Miller of the New York Times, both of which happily pimped false propaganda about "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq during the run-up to war. I've never had any sympathy for Miller as a self-styled press martyr in going to jail. She didn't act as a journalist in this business; she was simply a shill for dishonest war propaganda. She's is a disgrace to the entire profession of journalism.
A press corps this profoundly dysfunctional is not going to reform overnight. They will cover the Plame and DeLay cases with their usual approach of establishing simplistic "scripts" into which they will try to shoehorn all their reporting. Expect to see their usual carelessness with factual details, their gullibility for administration spin and their herd instinct to sensationalism and trivia. Josh Marshall just caught the "liberal" New York Times shilling for disinformation from Tom DeLay (Talking Points Memo 10/07/05).
The liberal blogosphere is not entirely immune to such shortcomings, of course. I have reservations about some of Arianna Huffington's articles and posts related to the Plame case, for instance. She doesn't seem to be as careful with her sources as I would prefer to see.
And no one should worry that cable news coverage of sensational trials and missing white women are going to be displaced for long by stories concerning lesser issues like war and peace, treasonous exposure of national security secrets or massive corruption of the national legislative process.
That's why it's important to have serious reporters like Murray Waas, Joe Conason, Laura Rozen and others working these stories and providing solid and careful analysis. Sure, it's a pleasant sight for Democrats and war critics to see the Republican sleaze maching bashed in the press (the DeLay case) and the lies over the Iraq War coming back on the heads of the Bush administration (the Plame case).
Those who imagine this road-to-Damascus transformation having struck our Potemkin press corps are giving in to wishful thinking.
No comments:
Post a Comment