Oh, I would bet my ass that they’re just trying to save theirs.

Must schedule time to rip that to shreds. Do you think they’ll admit Jill Abramson has been lying HER ass off? Do you think they’ll admit they had already but the shilly girl on ice, which is why she couldn’t leak Plame’s identity?

According to the NY Observer, the investigative piece is being run by the following individuals

Deputy managing editor Jon Landman—who is overseeing a Miller-case reporting team that includes Adam Liptak, Janny Scott and Don Van Natta Jr.—said that the delay is a matter of full access, not permission.

I guess there are two questions:

1. Are these individuals entirely independent from the Abramson/Miller apparatus?

2. If so, will they have sufficient freedom to right a piece that criticizes their employer?

I agree with you about the anonymous sources, MB. As I said, Cohen isn’t makeing a First Amendment argument (if he were, he should have his pundit card taken away right away, because his piece is logically inconsistent with a first amendment stance). He’s decrying the end of impunity, the state where journalists can just write anything they want.

I have been looking over some of the Al Qaeda missive articles from last week. Why aren’t we laughing at these people, who didn’t at least include a caveat â€this missive is improbable for X Y and Z reasonsâ€? We may not be doing so now–but we will be soon, once this Plame thing breaks.

I’m glad MB mentioned I.F. Stone, because as I read this piece I was thinking about him, and the regretably mostly unknown Walter Karp.

Back in the mid-to-late 80’s, when I became politically aware and really began to develop my critical thinking skills, Karp–who died around 1990–wrote several pieces for Harpers. One piece, which I think is in a collection of his essays that Harpers has published, was on how the media worked. I had read some Chomsky by that point, but for some reason it seemed to mechanistic, some vague forces that enforced compliance, but the description of what cogs and gears did what seemed missing. But when I read Karp’s article, it was an epiphany.

In short, his contention was that those in power instil compliance through leaks. People in power, especially in DC, tend to be very good about parceling out just enough tidbits of information to individual reporters and news outlets that, like wild animals made docile and dependent through feeding, these reporters and news organizations stop doing independent, critical reporting. Sure, lots still happens. But most reporters grow lazy, and they grow scared, because if they screw over a source, they’ll be locked out of future leaks and scoops, and they’ll remain behind their competetors in those categories.

Of all the insights about the press the Bushies brought with them to the campaign and to DC, that’s been their most important. The strong-arming of Newsweek with the Koran stories, shutting down Dana Milbank and Helen Thomas in the press room, even feeding the reporters far better food on the campaign plane than they were getting on the Gore plane, the Bushies have played the press quite well. They’ve preyed on their pettiness, their lazyness, and their fear. And those who wouldn’t be easily cowed, they’ve tried to destroy, to lock out, to shut down. And because they’ve grown so dependent on handouts from those in power, too many in the DC press corps don’t know how to hunt for their own keep.

Interesting side-note about Karp and Stone. It’s widely known that late in life, despite that failing eyesite mentioned by MB, Stone taught himself Greek so he could read and eventually write a well-recieved book on the trial of Socrates. (He concluded Socrates was very anti-Democratic.) Conincidently, Walter Karp–who like Stone stayed clear of the normal haunts of DC journalists, and dug in other places for his stories, especially in information in the public sphere–was a bit of an expert in the Greeks, enough so that an essay on Thucydices is included in the Norton Critical Edition of The Pelopenisian Wars.

from Kurtz:

In Salon, Sid Blumenthal , who had his own grand jury experience during Monicagate, doesn’t like the media’s performance this time:

â€Unlike in Watergate, which was largely advanced by the press, this scandal has unfolded despite much of the press corps’ efforts to avoid, demean or restrain the story until very recently. Also unlike in Watergate, major influences in the press have aligned with their sources in the administration, not with the professionals in the government acting as whistle-blowers.â€

Now go back and read Cohen. Until very recently? It’s still going on.

Here you go, Redshift:

U.S. OFFICIALS SAY IRAQ HAD ABILITY TO MAKE NUCLEAR WEAPON IN 1981State Department and intelligence officials said today they believed that Iraq had acquired enough enriched uranium and sensitive technology to make one nuclear weapon by the end of this year, and several bombs by the mid 1980’s.

This conclusion, intelligence officials said, is based on Iraq’s ambitious nuclear program, which they described as far exceeding either the Iraqis’ power requirements or programs aimed at commercial use. But the conclusion is questioned by some Administration and Congressional quarters.

Redshift,

I broke my pledge to not subscribe to Times Select. Luckily they have a 14 day trial so I’ll be cancelling before the trial period is up.

The title of Judy Miller’s NYT article was â€U.S. Officials say Iraq had Ability to Make Nuclear Weapon in 1981â€. There was a 1982 article also that didn’t have the word â€Italy†in it but it did have the word â€yellow-cake†in it.

Let me say that I have no idea what connection there is between these 1980s articles and events after 2000, if there is any connection at all. I just wanted to be sure that emptywheel and others knew about this. It would be interesting to find out what other journalists were reporting this story in the 1980s.

Here are the first four paragraphs of the 1981 article.

â€State Department and intelligence officials said today they believed that Iraq had acquired enough enriched uranium and sensitive technology to make one nuclear weapon by the end of this year, and several bombs by the mid 1980’s.

â€This conclusion, intelligence officials said, is based on Iraq’s ambitious nuclear program, which they described as far exceeding either the Iraqis’ power requirements or programs aimed at commercial use. But the conclusion is questioned by some Administration and Congressional quarters.

â€Concern about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities has grown recently, the officials said, in light of intelligence reports that Baghdad has been negotiating with an Italian company to purchase a small reprocessing plant. In addition, the officials said that Italy had been training Iraqi technicians and scientists in reprocessing technology, which could be used to separate plutonium as a weapons material, a development that generated intense concern in Israel.

â€One official said that Iraq had also purchased large quantities of uranium ore from Portugal and Niger, and that, in negotiations with Portugal, it had threatened to cut off oil shipments unless uranium ore was supplied.â€

Dem,

That’s worth a post in and of itself.

So I just saw that Cohen article. And it’s pretty much as I thought: the spin is â€they’re attempting to criminalize politics.†I just didn’t think the first volley would come from the press. I thought they’d shamelessly run with it, but I thought they’d at least give the â€admininstration†the courtesy to launch it themselves.

The 1981-era Iraqi nuclear capability would be that which was discovered and destroyed at Osirak, no?

Kagro, Cohen is not only a hack, but an unoriginal hack. Tom Oliphant said it first on Hardball three days ago.

OLIPHANT: Maybe more.

I mean, according to this developing theory of the case, you could even suggest that one of the reporters is technically exposed. What I don‘t understand is why I don‘t hear more of my fellow lefties screaming to the heavens about a situation like this, where the power of the state is being used essentially, as near as I can tell, to criminalize the political transactions of Washington.

I mean, we learned from Pat Buchanan in Watergate that that was an excess of…

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: So, you think may just be political hardball and not criminal, going out to destroy or discredit somebody like Joe Wilson?

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: That is the question.

OLIPHANT: Exactly.

here is a thought and it is not one i got today. it’s something i have thought about for a while.

close down the white house press corp.

close it down completely: the rooms, the daily briefings, the amenities (which i understand aren’t much anymore), the closeness to power (snuggle), the broadcasts from the lawn.

let journalists earn their pay by going about town and asking lots of questions. And, at the same time,make it less convenient for the white house to engage in manipulation or obfuscation.

this would be partly symbolic, of course, leaks and othe manipulations occur by e-mail, phone, or over waffles.

such a reform, unlikely as it is, would prevent editors from easily arguing that â€we have to make what the white house said today a headlineâ€.

and it would make the white house work harder, too; their communications people would have to plot how to inform opinion leaders and the public, rather than how to arm wrestle with a bunch of bored reporters.

â€This — this creepy silence — â€

Oh please! I stopped reading RC’s article early because I had a feeling he was going there. On the other hand, I’ve been enjoying the inspiring stories of better times—for journalism, at least—that people on this thread have been sharing.

Regarding that mass pile-up of hot topic keywords … well, I guess if you’re going to do a, you know, thing-y, that needs to be operated over time and distance without much co-ordination, it would help to have a script handy, wouldn’t it? Remember how C.Rice used to talk about fears that terrorists might use communications through the media to send coded messages? Jam that up with this crowd’s propensity to project, and it does prompt a moment’s wonder.

After this does blow open, it won’t just be Judy Miller’s reporting that comes under scrutiny. It’ll be the whole system of leaks, in all its disgusting squalor. — EW

Yeah. Just like what can happen when the python swallows the alligator. Disgusting squalor, indeed.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ne…..hurricanes

–

can’t let this pass:

Boston, Mass.: You mentioned the column by Richard Cohen yesterday. I was stunned by the amazingly broad–both visceral and well-reasoned criticism of his column. He was, and continues to be slaughtered in the blogs. Has this created any debate within The Washington Post Newsroom?

Jim VandeHei: there is very little discussion in the news room about columns. we are too busy working.