Judith Miller's Incarceration and the Expanding Threat to A Free Press

David Broder, other reporters, and AP have avoided condemning Karl Rove for outing CIA agent Valerie Plame. They argue that he did not mention her by name, only saying she was Joe Wilson’s wife. Moreover, Rove only said she worked for the CIA; he did not act as a covert operative. It is now certain that Rove told Matt Cooper that Wilson’s wife was with the CIA, but it was only because the virtuous deputy chief of staff was trying to warn the Time reporter off a sensitive story. It could not have been to suggest Wilson would not have gotten the Niger assignment without her assistance. A standard conservative claim is that Rove was really not outing a covert agent.

If Rove wanted to honor the law and not out an agent, he could have avoided saying anything about her. Period. Yet, most of the mainstream media, has aired these RNC talking points--, using the he said-she said--, argued that his approach did not calls for no judgment and no investigation. Some of the mainstream media even repeats the charge that Democrats who worry about corruption–DeLay, Cunningham, or Rove– are simply reciting the nasty concerns of the wild people at Move On.org


Now there is Judith Miller in prison for not disclosing her sources in an investigation of who outed Plame to the press. She did not partipate in the original story. Now we learn she has been sleeping on a cold floor because there is not a bed for her. What is this all about but discouraging an investigative press? Her story grows more complex by the day. It is generally thought that she was an instrument of the Vice President's office in publicizing questionable information about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and that she was a confidant of Scooter Libby, Cheney's chief of Staff. After 85 days in jail, she accepted a release on condition that Fitzgerald only question her about Libby. She subsequently retired from the New York Times in part because some at the paper believed she had not revealled to her editor everything about her conversations with Libby.

Libby was subsequently indicted for obstruction and lying. Because Patrick Fitzgerald said that Libby was the first to reveal Plame's position, famed reporter Bob Woodward came forward to reveal that some othr unnamed person in the White House had told him about Plame a week or so before Libby told Miller. Woodward had all along said this matter did not involve illegalities and was mere politics.

Scooter is not likely to roll over on Cheney. He knows as we all do that Bush Sr. pardoned 6 people involved in Iran-Contra, and that there was almost no adverse public reaction. Chances that Bush II would pardon Scooter if this becoems necessary appear very good.

At the least, the mainstream press should frame her story in the context of an aready declining investigative press. Maybe that is due to economics and/or the effectiveness of entertainment journalism.

Maybe a few thoughtful writers of commentary columns would have placed this in the context of an increasingly cowed press. There is certainly no lack of evidence that the press is become very, very cautious. Of course there is little evidence to prove anyone intentionally wants to cow the press. Still the contextual evidence is worth considering.

-- Hiring, with federal funds, three journalists to sell Bush programs

-- Hiring Ketchum and Associates, again with federal funds, to rank outlets and journalists--maybe compiling an enemies list

-- Stripping Helen Thomas of her position as senior member of White House press corps

-- Reducing access to sources for journalists who write tough stories. Cheney keeping New York Times reporters off Air Force Two ( petty-petulent- and paranoic for such an intelligent man!)

-- Overreaction and distortion of Newsweek's recent error

-- Public Broadcasting changes: three ombudsmen--all Repubublicans!-- to monitor political content, paying consultants to monitor Moyers and three others, featuring the editorial page writers of one conservative paper with no one to offer balance, etc

-- Keeping Jeff Gannon in press conferences to lob softball questions with invented quotes from Democrats. Subsequently Gannon referenced a top secret document in questioning Joe Wilson about his wife. If the investigation of Plamegate reveals where he got the document, it can be considered straight-forward and a success.

-- Continual complaints about a liberal media, despite clear evidence to the contrary. Maybe most jouralists lean a bit left, but they bend over backward to exclude information that will arouse the ire of conservative readers. In basketball, this would be called playing the ref with great success.



Finally, some respected unembedded journalists have had special problems in Iraq. Maybe this claim should not be mentioned became this is unthinkable and would make questions about administration theory appear radical, conspiratorial, and completely over tie top.
If today’s standards mandating self-censorship were applicable in the 1770s, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, John Adams, and Tom Paine would not have had a hearing!
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