I assume Dana Milbank has been a reporter in Washington for more years than I worked in journalism (which was about 12 or so). That's why I'm so surprised at this piece in the Washington Post covering the Scooter Libby trial.
It's obvious prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is doing his best to turn a sow's ear into a really big sow's ear, is trying to circumvent the legal system of our country by tarring Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney without actually indicting them or calling them unindicted co-conspirators. I guess if you don't have a real case to argue, you do the best you can with what you have.
And what Fitzpatrick has is Libby.
Milbank's story about the testimony of former Vice Presidential communications director Cathie Martin is rather pathetic and naive. Or maybe he (and Fitzgerald) just think the public are.
Why do I say that? Because Milbank seems shocked--shocked!--that the vice president's office would try to put the best face on news events or cut off bad spin by Democrats and others at the knees.
There's this passage:
It is unclear whether the first week of the trial will help or hurt Libby or the administration. But the trial has already pulled back the curtain on the White House's PR techniques and confirmed some of the darkest suspicions of the reporters upon whom they are used. Relatively junior White House aides run roughshod over members of the president's Cabinet. Bush aides charged with speaking to the public and the media are kept out of the loop on some of the most important issues. And bad news is dumped before the weekend for the sole purpose of burying it.
It is a bad thing when the people charged with communicating with the press are kept out of the loop, but this isn't the first administration to dump bad news late on Friday afternoon in the hope of burying it. Indeed, this is a well-known tactic.
During the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, bank regulators were notorious for waiting until 6 p.m. or so before releasing the bad news about which S&Ls were being taken over. But Milbank's story makes this sound like an original (and nefarious) plot concocted by the evil Vice President Cheney and his secondhand stooge, Karl Rove.
Then there was this:
At length, Martin explained how she, Libby and deputy national security adviser Steve Hadley worked late into the night writing a statement to be issued by George Tenet in 2004 in which the CIA boss would take blame for the bogus claim in Bush's State of the Union address that Iraq was seeking nuclear material in Africa.
I realize Milbank swallowed whole the lie of the left about what President Bush actually said, but for those whose reading skills are sub-par (hi, Phoenician!) I'll say it plainly: President Bush was stating what the British government said it had learned (and a claim backed by other sources). One can't blame Milbank for trying to peddle this lie again--oh, wait. Yes, one can.
But wait! There's more:
But Martin, encouraged by Libby, secretly advised Libby and Cheney on how to respond. She put "Meet the Press" at the top of her list of "Options" but noted that it might appear "too defensive." Next, she proposed "leak to Sanger-Pincus-newsmags. Sit down and give to him." This meant that the "no-leak" White House would give the story to the New York Times' David Sanger, The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, or Time or Newsweek. Option 3: "Press conference -- Condi/Rumsfeld." Option 4: "Op-ed."
Martin was embarrassed about the "leak" option; the case, after all, is about a leak. "It's a term of art," she said. "If you give it to one reporter, they're likelier to write the story."
I'm not sure what Fitzgerald's point is in bringing Martin's testimony in here. That the White House tried to spin issues in ways it favored? That's not new, nor is it illegal. It's not even unethical, at least, not since Bill Clinton's administration. How can anyone complain about spin doctors after eight years of that?
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