July 14, 2005

This Whole Rove Thing

I understand we are a cat's whisker away from a full-scale red-alert major media feeding frenzy over Karl Rove, Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson, Matt Cooper, Judith Miller and Robert Novak. These things happen. They usually don't lead anywhere productive (like, towards the truth), but they do seem to fall from the sky every few years. This one is interesting, because W's administration hasn't had one yet. We'll get to see how the various personalities handle unpleasant press. This isn't really as important as, say, Iraq policy or North Korea or the idiotic energy bill that's under everybody's radar, but no one seems to care. Hell, it even seems to have bumped that whole Aruba/kidnapping/murder thing off the air.

I realize no one has asked me for my advice, but as a public service I'm going to provide it:

For the LeftBlogosphere: Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. Repeat a dozen times. Take your hands away from the keyboards and go and eat something or take a shower. There is a judical process underway. Justice hasn't been swift in this country for many decades, so this will all take a little time. Stop screaming about Rove and Bush and ScottyMcC. Yes, something bad happened. Someone is, right now, investigating this. Those people will let us know what they know. Just not today. No matter how much you beg and whine. Find something else to write about. Iraq policy still sucks. Iran recently elected someone who hates us more than the average Iranian. North Korea returned to the negotiating table. 52 people died in London. There are more important things than Karl Rove. Stop obsessing.
For the RightBlogosphere: You, also, should cease writing immediately. You are not helping your cause. Someone clearly did something wrong here. Parsing the words of the various lawyers or individuals in an attempt to "prove" that whoever leaked this did no wrong makes you look dumb. Minimizing the actions that the leaker did in revealing Valerie Plame's name and occupation does not make you look intelligent or correct. Admit that this was a criminal act, and if sufficient evidence can be found to convict anyone of doing it, this would be correct. It would even be moral: you remember morals. You talk about them all the time. Let's have some here.
For the Media: Yes, this is a story. No, this isn't the second coming or another terrorist attack. Get some perspective, think rationally, and write intelligent articles about what, if any, damage this has done. How has it hurt the CIA? The War on Terror? Recruiting for the CIA? How badly has this contributed to the politization of the intelligence services? Do some journalism, for pete's sake.
For Matt Cooper: You should immediately quit your job. I don't care what the courts say (they have to worry about laws and stuff), reporters never reveal confidential sources. Yes, I know, you were against this, and only went along with it when your employer, Time Magazine, caved. That doesn't absolve you.
For Judith Miller: Good on you. Stay quiet. This doesn't fully absolve you of some awful reporting on the whole WMD issue, but it helps. Very few people are looking good out of this affair, but you are one of them.
For Time Magazine: I'll never look at your stuff ever again. You should immediately cease publishing, apologize to everyone, and just leave the scene. See, I agree with the court decision (no one has the right to avoid testifying in the prosecution of a crime) from a legal perspective. However, morals trump legalities any day, and the moral position was to take your lumps, pay your fines and send your reporter to jail (with full pay). You failed to do this, and have lost all credibility with me forever. Just go away.
For the Administration: Stop stonewalling. Look, you are on record as saying anyone who did this should be fired. You can't refuse to acknowledge those words, you can't ignore them, and you can't close your collective eyes in hope this all goes away. This president ran (in 2000) a campaign based in part on the "bring dignity back to the White House" slogan. You need to live up to that. Just say, calmly, that of course if anyone in the White House did anything legally wrong, they will resign. Hell, say that they'll resign even if they are charged (you can hire them back later, if they are found not guilty). You screwed up by commenting on this issue years ago, so you can't now claim you won't comment. Just remember: scandals always get worse the more you stonewall and avoid. Just take the lumps now, before the become critical damage in future months.
For Karl Rove: If you did this, even if you didn't actually mention the name "Valerie Plame" to Cooper, you should resign. It's wrong. Morally. Legally. It hurt National Security (every single country where Plame's company did business for the last few decades has been checking where every employee was, who they talked to, and what they might know. Hence, all those countries now know what the US intelligence might know, which makes it not really useful intelligence. This is bad.). If you didn't, then your failure to speak to the press is good (it cuts down the frenzy aspect), but put a leash on your lawyer. He's parsing too much. Save that for a courtroom, where it might save your ass, but not for the public sphere. It makes you look cheap, petty, and (an insult in terms you might understand) Clintonian. That's not good.

If anyone else acts up, I'll give them some unsolicited advice too.

Posted by baltar at July 14, 2005 11:19 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics


Comments

well said.

Posted by: joshua at July 14, 2005 02:53 PM | PERMALINK

Joshua,

I thought you'd give me a hassle when I argued that the reporters should disobey a correct court ruling because it was the morally correct position (though not the legally correct one). Huh, I must really be on today.

Posted by: baltar at July 14, 2005 04:32 PM | PERMALINK

interestingly, within certain very narrow confines it would take research to recover (and hence in the heat and mugginess will not be conducted presently), the first amendment represents the one set of constitutional violations caselaw says you can actually violate ante hoc, as it were, the idea being that in certain contexts there's no time to secure injunctive relief. it's probably, in effect, something like a necessity defense.

granted, there's less exigency here, as evidenced by the protracted and tortured course the litigation here at issue has followed, so even in light of that exception it pretty clearly doesn't apply.

i view this stuff as civil disobedience, and your comments as an endorsement of same. i sure as shit won't be buying Time magazine any time soon, and whatever narrow chance there was that i would subscribe to that magazine in this lifetime is now gone.

in this country, the press is tantamount to a branch of government; long before this fiasco, it had been compromised in its crucial role in our polity. this simply makes it worse.

as an attorney, i'd advise my journalist client to follow the law and advise him of the possible consequences of failing to do so. if he then told me he couldn't do that, and he was prepared to suffer the consequences, i'd shake his hand, and promise to fight with him until the last legally valid tactic had been exhausted.

i reiterate: well said.

Posted by: joshua at July 16, 2005 06:49 PM | PERMALINK
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