As I listened today to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald outlining the charges against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, it became clear that what I had been gathering in new reports about the imbroglio over the last week was accurate; the Vice President’s then-Chief of Staff lied to investigators and grand jurors.
Libby has now been accused of doing exactly what Joe Wilson has been doing since that “Administration critic” wrote the New York Times op-ed at issue in this whole mess. He deceived people. With one big difference. Libby lied under oath and Wilson did so in the pages of newspapers, in the pages of his book, on the lecture circuit and on a variety of talk shows.
The First Amendment protects Mr. Wilson’s freedom to lie to the media. It doesn’t protect Mr. Libby’s to do so in a judicial proceeding. As a lawyer, he should have known better than to invent a story of how he learned Ms. Plame’s name, then tell it, not to amuse his friends, but to deceive federal investigators. He should have told them the truth. And now he appears to be guilty of serious crimes. Still, as the president said in his brief remarks just a few moments ago, “In our system, each individual is presumed innocent and entitled to due process and a fair trial.”
It doesn’t look very good for Mr. Libby now. If he did indeed lie to the grand jury (as the indictment indicates), he hurt the Vice President and the president as well. And he broke the law. He did the right thing in resigning. If a jury of his peers finds him guilty of the crimes for which Mr. FItzgerald indicted him today, he should pay a heavy penalty.
“Plamegate”–Still Trying to Figure Out if Rove Told All
Just before bed, I read this curious paragraph in the New York Times about the “Plamegate” investigation:
Three days before the grand jury in the case expires and with the White House in a state of high anxiety, the special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, appeared still to be trying to determine whether Mr. Rove had been fully forthcoming about his contacts with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist, in July 2003, they said.
I call this paragraph curious because it seems kind of late in the game “still to be trying” to figure out whether a key witness in this case has told investigators all he knew about his contact with reporters.
Granted, unlike Mr. Fitzgerald, I don’t have access to all the facts in this case nor I have heard Mr. Rove’s testimony — or even read a transcript of that testimony. Since Mr. Cooper has been rather forthcoming about his testimony, we know that Rove’s contact with him on the topic was a “brief conversation” during which Rove merely warned Cooper not to “get too far out on Wilson.” To be sure, Rove did not mention this brief conversation in his initial appearance before the grand jury, but when his attorney alerted him to an e-mail he had written confirming the conversation, Rove voluntarily returned to testify.
In a thoughtful analysis of the discovery of that e-mail, the Anonymous Liberal shows how it came to pass that that neither Rove nor his attorneys discovered that e-mail at that outset of the investigation. (Hat tip: JustOneMinute.) Accepting that the White House may not have deliberately withheld this e-mail, this thoughtful liberal concludes:
The question that remains is whether Rove’s failure to mention his conversation with Cooper was the result of a genuine lapse of memory or a purposeful lack of candor. I suspect the latter, but ultimately it’s the opinions of the grand jurors that will matter.
Perhaps, the prosecutor, like this liberal, suspects Rove’s purposeful lack of candor. And that explains what he is still trying to determine at this late date. While I agree with Anonymous’s first sentence, I disagree with his second. As I blogged recently, I suspect Rove’s failure to testify about the conversation was due to a lapse of memory.
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“Hillary’s Gonna Be Indicted!”
As I have been reading various articles about “Plamegate” in the past few days, I have noted the conditional nature of the claims of lawyers “close to the case” about Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s intentions on indicting White House officials. In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, we learn that he “may be piecing together a case that White House officials conspired to leak various types of classified material” while the New York Times reports that he “may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions” and “Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy.” (Emphasis added in all three quotations.)
Reading these latest articles, only one thing seems clear: while some lawyers close to the case seem eager for Fitzgerald to indict, the special prosecutor himself has not yet made up his mind whether to bring indictments. From what we know, it seems increasingly likely that if Fitzgerald brings any charges, they will not be related to the alleged crime he was hired to investigate, but to how certain White House officials handled the investigation. According to the Times, “Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement – counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions.”
And although Fitzgerald has not yet made up his mind, speculation is rampant (even among conservatives) that indictments are imminent. All this reminds me of a Republican colleague’s convictions back in the early days of President Clinton’s second term. This man strode into work one day, smiling and expressing confidently, “Hillary’s gonna be indicted.” “When?” we asked, eager to see the then-president’s very partisan wife behind bars. “Any day now,” came the reply. He had no doubt his information was accurate and that then-First Lady would soon be indicted. (My colleague repeated his refrain (about the imminence of her indictment) for several weeks.)
Despite our hopes (and her shady activities), Mrs. Clinton was never indicted and has continued to remain a prominent figure in Democratic politics. It seems a similar thing is going on today about Rove for, in many ways, Democrats think of Karl Rove in much the same way as Republicans think of Hillary. To his (or her) adversaries, each embodies corruption, hunger for power and an eagerness to use that power to advance his (or her) ideological ends. Just as we wanted Hillary to be indicted, today’s Democrats want Rove to be indicted. Wishful thinking on both sides.
But, as Tom Maguire, who has covered this scandal more thoroughly than any other blogger (at least that I have read), observed in a post last night:
Subject to the caveat that most of the leaks have come from attorneys sympathetic to various Administration officials, and keeping in mind that Fitzgerald may have a lot of evidence we have not seen, let me say this – Karl Rove’s problems with the Matt Cooper phone call are trivial, and Fitzgerald will only hit Rove with that if he is desperate to charge Rove with something and is prepared to lose at trial.
In short, based on what we know, Rove did nothing wrong. Still, his adversaries are certain he will be indicted. Not based on evidence, mind you, but based on their conviction that because he is a horrrible, no good, very bad man, he has to be guilty of something. Sounds similar to Republican attitudes toward Hillary nearly a decade ago.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
DeLay, like Clinton, Master of the Political Game
As I’ve said before, I’m no fan of Tom DeLay, but after seeing his confident smile on his mug shot yesterday, I gotta admit, I admire his political skills, just as I admire those of his chief political nemesis of the 1990s–Bill Clinton. Democrats are now gnashing their teeth at this Republican’s pose. It’ll be hard for them to use this image as a “campaign prop.”
The folks at the Democratic Underground are absolutely apoplectic, with one guy suggesting DeLay received “special treatment.” (Thanks to Malcontent‘s adorable Robbie for the tip.) One reporter
He looks in the photo like a proud member of Congress who might just have won the lottery, not one indicted on charges of money laundering. The photo looks like it could have been taken anywhere.
And that was just the point.
(Via Drudge.) His pose reminds me of the confidence then-President Clinton showed when allegations first surfaced in January 1998 that he lied under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. As the story was breaking, that Democrat was preparing to deliver the State of the Union address. Given the allegations, many thought he should cancel the speech.
Such suggestions notwithstanding, Clinton stood firm and confidently strode into the House chamber that night to deliver his speech as planned. As I recall, he looked presidential and seemed unfazed by the allegations. So delivering that State of the Union address, Clinton saved his presidency. With the American people watching on live television (perhaps there was an increased audience due to the whiff of scandal), he made it appear that, despite the accusations, he was continuing to do his job — focusing on issues of national concern.
Clinton, like DeLay, is a master of the political game. It’s interesting to note that both men (Clinton largely through his surrogates) have gone after the prosecutors leveling charges against them, Clinton’s people badmouthed Kenneth Starr, DeLay taking on Ronnie Earle.
Despite my lack of enthusiasm for Mr. DeLay, I find myself rooting for him in his current troubles, have even considered making a token contribution to his legal defense fund. And all this makes me wonder about Democratic support for Clinton in the 1990s. Maybe they weren’t so much rallying to support their man as relishing his fighting spirit against charges leveled by his (and their) political adversaries.
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
No Evidence of Wrongdoing, but Something Smells Fishy about Libby
Not long after posting my previous piece on Karl Rove and Plamegate, a reader sent me a link to this National Journal piece on the hullabaloo. As I read it, i realized how little attention I had paid to the testimony of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff. Perhaps because I was so fascinated by the Bush-haters’s demonizing of Karl Rove, I focused more on that good man’s role in all this than in other aspects of the case.
As I read the National Journal piece and recalled some other things I had read (and heard) about Libby, something smelled kind of fishy. It just seemed odd, particularly Libby’s relationship with reporter Judith Miller. Not only that. Several articles have noted contradictions between Libby’s testimony and that of other reporters (including Ms. Miller) with whom he had spoken.
While the New York Times and others on the left seem optimistic that recent comments from special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald heighten “the expectation that he intends to bring indictments” (as the Times puts it), I think this expectation is merely wish-fulfillment — predicting the outcome of the investigation that they most desire. To me, however, it seems far from clear that Fitzgerald intends to indict anyone. The Times itself reports that “Mr. Fitzgerald has repeatedly told lawyers in the case that he has not made up his mind about criminal charges.”
This morning on Fox News, Fred Barnes said that Fitzgerald’s present indecision suggests that there is “no overpowering evidence of wrongdoing.”
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Karl Rove, “Plamegate” & Discrediting a Dishonest Democrat
While Andrew Sullivan and others on the left hold that Karl Rove (either or his own or through his mischievous minions) leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to the media in order to “smear Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson,” anyone who spends a few moments studying the facts of the case will see that what little Rove had to say (or do) with the matter involved an attempt to steer a reporter away from the story. That doesn’t sound like much of a smear to me. While the President’s enemies think Rove was involved in an effort to retaliate against a critic, at most, he was involved (and tangentially at that) in an effort to discredit a dishonest critic, a man one who lied to the American people in his criticism of the Administration.
Even Andrew’s one-time New Republic colleague (to whom Andrew introduced me in 1991) Jacob Weisberg (via Instapundit) finds that “Wilson’s accusation that administration officials outed his wife to punish him for speaking up was never really credible.” Based on Judith Miller’s account of her testimony, Weisberg suggests that another Administration official, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the Vice President’s chief of staff, may have leaked the name, not to smear Wilson, but as part of public dispute between the White House and the CIA. Weisberg notes that “Libby’s comments don’t look anything like retaliation against Joe Wilson—especially now that we know that Libby first mentioned Wilson and his wife to Judith Miller three weeks before Wilson went public with his op-ed piece.” (Emphasis added.)
Indeed, as Bush-haters are salivating at the possibility that Rove might be indicted, so certain are they that he sought to slime Mr. Wilson, they ignore how little Mr. Rove actually said to the media about Ms. Plame. Indeed, so far, I have yet to find any evidence that he ever mentioned her name to anyone at all, much less a reporter (before that name became common knowledge).
It seems Rove addressed the matter only two times, once merely acknowledging that he was aware that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. When columnist Robert Novak mentioned to him that “he had learned that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA,” Rove replied, “I heard that, too.” The second time was when Rove warned Time reporter Matt Cooper “not to ‘get too far out on Wilson‘” as it was his wife “who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.”
It is clear from those comments that, as Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin put it, his client “was trying to discourage Time magazine from circulating false allegations about Cheney, not trying to encourage them by saying anything about Wilson or his wife.” But, so eager are Bush’s critics to smear Karl Rove that they read his attempt to kill a story as a strategem to slime an administration critic.
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Mary Mapes: MSM’s Poster Child
There seems to be some serendipity in the upcoming release of former CBS News Producer Mary Mapes’ book and media acknowledgment of its own biased coverage of Hurricane Katrina. Indeed, in the past two days, at least two leading conservative bloggers (Hugh Hewitt and Powerline) have commented on both topics. Just as the MSM tailored its reporting of the hurricane to fit the story it wanted to tell–that the slow recovery was all Bush’s fault–so did Ms. Mapes tailor her reporting of the president’s National Guard service to fit the conclusion she had reached long before she obtained memos which supposedly confirmed her theory.
Mary Mapes, as you many recall, had been pursuing the story of the president’s National Guard service for five years. Like many on the left, she believed the president’s father pulled strings to get his son a National Guard post so he wouldn’t have to serve in Vietnam and that once there, the future president shirked his duty. But, she could come up with no hard evidence to prove her case until a man she called an “unimpeachable source” came up with documents which confirmed that theory.
Alas (for her), bloggers quickly determined the memos to be forgeries, largely based on the typeface (CBS claimed the memos were from the early 1970s, yet they used proportional spacing typical of computer word-processing programs). The bloggers’ case was strengthened when CBS revealed that the “unimpeachable source” was Bill Burkett, a man with a long history of hating George W. Bush.
Ms. Mapes let her bias, her own belief that Bush had to have shirked his duty, cloud her judgment just as the MSM did in pinning the blame on president Bush for failures in the relief effort in the aftermath of Katrina. Though Dan Rather, Ms. Mapes comrade-in-arms in the Memogate scandal, called the MSM’s coverage of the Hurricane, “one of television news’ finest moments,” in the past couple of days, even the LA Times, an MSM mainstay, has found that coverage to be distorted.
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Does David Brooks read GayPatriot?
Three months ago, I posted Captain Ahab Democrats where I noted that, like Captain Ahab obsessed with the white whale in Moby Dick, many Democrats, notably their hater-in-chief chairman are similarly obsessed with the president, seeing him as his party as the “the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them.” Just moments ago, when reading a David Brooks column (linked by Instapundit), I wondered if that columnist reads our blog. In commenting on Senator Kerry’s speech attacking the man who beat him last November for his handling Katrina, he writes:
In the first place, not even Karl Rove’s worldview is so obsessively Bush-centric as John Kerry’s. There are many interesting issues raised by Katrina, but for Senator Ahab it all goes back to the great white monster, Bush. Bush and his crew should have known the levees were weak. Bush and his crew should have known thousands in New Orleans would be trapped. (Did I miss Kerry’s own warnings on these subjects?) All reality flows back to Bush. All begins with Bush, ends with Bush, is explained by Bush and is polluted by Bush, cursed be thy name.
Media Neglects Rita’s Gay Angle
In an excellent column on media bias and the coverage of Katrina, Jonah Goldberg has also noticed bias in the coverage of Rita which even your humble blogger missed, but then again, so did the gay media:
The questions raised by unlovely Rita are as painful as they are obvious. Will gays stay behind in disproportionate numbers in this disproportionately gay city? If so, Why? If gay marriage were legalized, could some of this disaster be avoided? Would George W. Bush have responded more quickly if the victims were just a tad less stylish? And, of course: Will the federal government help keep Key West festive?
Why weren’t reporters standing at the ready to caterwaul about the wreckage at their feet? Cher albums and the collected writings of James Wolcott strewn about like beer cans and pizza boxes in an apartment yet to be transformed by the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Now, just read the whole thing for Jonah’s broader points on media coverage of Katrina.
HT: Polipundit’s Lorie Byrd
-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com
The willfull ignorance of Bush-bashers — and their media allies
Almost since Bruce’s first post on this blog, we have been faulted for not criticizing the president enough. And while on the whole, we believe he has done a good job, each of us is aware of his faults (and his flaws). I have made clear my opposition to the Federal Marriage Amendment (which the president supports) and have taken him to task for failing to follow Ronald Reagan’s vision of federalism. I have not said as much as I would like about his inability to hold the line on federal spending or about his inadquate solutions to deal with illegal immigration and border-control.
While I acknowledge that George W. Bush has been far from a perfect president, I frequently find myself in the position of Roger Simon who asked yesterday: “Am I the only one who likes Bush more every time he is excessively attacked by the mainstream media?” Roger’s “case in point” is Hurricane Katrina. Instead of seeing the Administration’s mistakes in the context of the size of the storm and the accomplishments of federal (as well as state and local) agencies in providing relief (see here for a partial listing of what went right, HT: Powerline), the MSM focus on the mistakes — so as to create a legend of his failure.
As Roger put it, “The willful ignorance of the media in their zeal to get Bush is peculiar.” And adds, “The more these attacks continue in this manner the more Bush will thrive. That’s the way humans react to unfairness.” And perhaps that’s why we have spent more defending the president than dwelling on our areas of disagreement. We see how unfairly the media, particularly the gay media, has treated the president.
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Just like the Shinbone Star, MSM neglects the facts, prints the legend
Last night, I watched a movie which instantly joined Shane and Clint Eastwood‘s Unforgiven as one of my favorite Westerns. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, James Stewart plays Ransom Stoddard, a lawyer who thinks he can deal with Liberty Valance, a bloodthirsty bandit, through the law, but ends up facing him in a gun battle. Legend has it that he shot Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), but in reality, hiding in the shadows, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) fires the bullet that finishes off the villain. When, years later, Stoddard returns to the town for Doniphon’s funeral, he tells the press the true story, the editor of the Shinbone Star refuses to use it, saying “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
It seems in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina, the MSM is not much different from its fictional counterpart. In this case, the media made the legend–that President Bush and the federal government failed miserably in response to this once-in-a-century catastrophe. As the resignation earlier today of FEMA head Michael Brown indicates, the federal response was far from perfect, but as this blog (e.g., here, here and here) and others have shown, local agencies made the lion’s share of mistakes in the evacuation and recovery efforts.
But, despite this evidence, the MSM continues to report the legend. In an AP article today, Jennifer Loven notes that the president visited New Orleans today with “New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco — both of whom have criticized the federal response.” Ms. Loven focuses only on criticism of the president and neglects to mention that many have criticized those two individuals for flawed city and state responses (respectively) to the disaster.
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Power out in LA; local media in major meltdown
Earlier today, a reader Instant Messaged me noting that the site was down. He wondered if it was related to the blackouts here in LA. Well, my neighborhood was spared the blackout. And by the time I set off to run a few errands, the power was back on across LA, but when I tuned into talk radio, every station was covering the hour or so loss of power as if it were a major catastrophe. LA Blogger Matt Szabo noted that the news media snapped “into car-chase mode as the melodrama unfolded.” I highly recommend Matt’s coverage of the “catastrophe,” for as he so wisely observes, “Few things are funnier than watching an inconvenience covered as a crisis.”
Thursday Open Thread
Why does the MSM pay more attention to Cindy Sheehan than to stories like this? (Via Instapundit.) It seems to me that the people of Festus, Missouri better represent our nation than does Cindy Sheehan, but then again Cindy Sheehan represents the MSM’s version of America.
The president’s attitude toward our fallen heroes & their families
In an excellent piece, Michael Barone asks, “How much coverage would the press have given a World War II-era Cindy Sheehan who camped outside Hyde Park or Warm Springs demanding to meet with President Roosevelt?”
After offering some anecdotes of that Democratic president’s meeting with wounded soldiers during World War II, Barone turns to an erstwhile opponent of the president, John McCain, to describe how our current president handles similar meetings:
Look, I’ve been with the president of the United States when he has met with the families of those brave young men and women who have sacrificed. I have seen his compassion, I have seen his love, I have seen his concern. So any charge of insensitivity or uncaring on the part of this president, is absolutely false. He cares and he grieves. . . . I have seen him, I have seen his care, and I have seen him grieve. And I’m sure he wouldn’t like to hear me say this, but I saw him afterwards. He was very, very grieved. And that’s the job of the president of the United States. He fully appreciates the tragedy of the loss of these brave young Americans.
So, why then, I wonder, is the media giving so much attention to antics of one angry relative and so little attention to the reality of the president’s visits with relatives of our fallen heroes?
Hat tip: Polipundit‘s Lorie Byrd. And be sure to read Barone’s post as well as the Anchoress’ post on the president’s meetings with the grieving families.
MSM & Iraq–not telling us about the real war
Just a few weeks ago, I blogged on media bias and noted that reporter Mark Yost was taken to task for reporting that the MSM “ignores positive changes” in Iraq. Well, it’s not only positive changes, they’re ignoring. The MSM is by and large failing to report a major offensive by U.S. & Iraqi forces. Over at Powerline, Paul wonders:
Have you ever read a history of war that focused almost entirely on casualty figures (with an occasional torture story and grieving parent thrown in), to the exclusion of any real discussion of tactics, operations, and actual battles? I haven’t. But that’s what our self-proclaimed “rough drafters” of history are serving up with respect to Iraq.
No wonder more and more people are turning to blogs to get information. Powerline links to Belmont Club which reports on the offensive here.
MSM bias–failing to present a perspective favorable to the President and the GOP
While driving back from my classes on Wednesday, I was listening to a report on the Energy Bill, then before Congress, on NewsRadio KNX 1070. This “news” station included two perspectives on the legislation, the first, a lengthy commentary from a spokesperson for an advocacy organization who faulted the bill, referring to it (three times by my count) as lining the pockets or the oil companies. The second perspective came from Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, also an opponent of the legislation. (He was among only 19 Democrats (along with 6 Republicans and one Independent) voting against the legislation.) The “news” station did not include a perspective (at least in the segment I heard — about 7 PM PST) from proponents of the bill.
And yet the bill was quite popular in Congress; today, it cleared the Senate by a vote of 74-26. The margin in the House was 275-156. More than half of the Senate’s Democratic caucus (25 of 44 Senators) voted in favor of the legislation.
As a popular bill was heading toward passage in Congress, a bill which the president favors, a “news” station only saw fit to broadcast the views of opponents of the legislation. This is not the only time when we see our mainstream media broadcasting one perspective, usually a perspective at odds with that of President Bush. Powerline reports that a reporter got himself in hot water for “criticizing the performance of his media colleagues in Iraq.” Mark Yost merely noted that the media coverage of the Iraq war “ignores positive changes” in that recently-liberated land.
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The LA Times does it again
Just five days ago, I wrote that my local paper, the LA Times left out key facts in article on Bush Administration’s efforts to discredit a dishonest critic. Well, they’ve done it again today. In the paper’s article on the continuing “CIA leak investigation,” different reporters (from those who wrote on Monday) offer the same biased account of the claims that former Kerry campaign aide Joseph C. Wilson IV made in the summer of 2003. According to the Times:
Wilson later wrote in the op-ed piece that the claims were likely false and that intelligence cited by the Bush administration to support the invasion of Iraq “was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”
Note that the reporters rely on Wilson’s writing to define the claims. Nowhere do they mention the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq which debunked what Wilson had written. Indeed, Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) wrote:
The former Ambassador, either by design or through ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading.
LA Times leaves out key facts in article on Bush Administration’s efforts to discredit dishonest critic
The LA Times begins its front-page above-the-fold article on the alleged “outing” of Valerie Plame with this sentence:
Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told.
Well, duh. Of course they’d try to discredit Mr. Wilson given that he lied in that op-ed article. Just over a year ago, the Washington Post reported that this one-time Kerry campaign aide “was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.” (Emphasis added.) Not only that. A bipartisan Senate Intelligence panel
found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address.
(Emphasis added.) Unfortunately, the L.A. TImes leaves a few facts out of its article. Its reporters don’t mention the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report as they suggest that there is a difference of opinion as to who sent Mr. Wilson to Niger:
White House officials contended that he had wrongly indicated that he was sent on his mission by Cheney. In fact, Wilson had said in the article that the trip was inspired by questions raised by Cheney’s office.
Note, how the Times uses the expression “In fact:” to distinguish what White House officials said from what Mr. Wilson said. As if Mr. Wilson is giving the facts and the White House is lying.
In fact, Mr. Wilson did say what the Times says he said. But, as I noted above no less a source than the Washington Post–no ally of the Bush White House–specifically noted that the facts of Wilson’s hiring differed from what he had said publicly.
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Against federal funding of broadcast (and other) media
After Congress regrettably voted to restore funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the umbrella organization for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), I want to draw your attention to an excellent piece in favor of defunding the CPB and privatizing the National Endowment for Arts as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities. In their piece on Culture Agencies from the Cato Handbook for Congress, David Boaz and Sheldon Richman write:
In a society that constitutionally limits the powers of government and maximizes individual liberty, there is no justification for the forcible transfer of money from taxpayers to artists, scholars, and broadcasters. If the proper role of government is to safeguard the security of the nation’s residents, by what rationale are they made to support exhibits of paintings, symphony orchestras, documentaries, scholarly research, and radio and television programs they might never freely choose to support? The kinds of things financed by federal cultural agencies were produced long before those agencies were created, and they will continue to be produced long after those agencies are privatized or defunded.
As with anything by David Boaz, I highly recommend that you read the whole thing.
AOL News, just as biased as the MSM?
Today, when I logged to check my e-mail on AOL, I was met with a welcome screen bearing the “Top News” headline: British Lawmaker Blasts ‘Republican Lynch Mob.'” (Here’s a link to a similar article on Yahoo as not all readers can access AOL’s news page.) Yes, the headline was accurate. But, it accented the charges the “lawmaker” made against Republicans without addressing why he had been called to testify. Kind of like headlining a trial of a little-known murderer by identifying the criminal by his profession coupled with his worst insult of the prosecutor.
Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs investigation subcommittee, George Galloway, a Member of the British Parliament lashed out at Senators looking into the United Nations’ oil-for-food scandal where former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein paid off various international figures, including himself, “to reward them for their opposition to sanctions.” Galloway denied the accusations.
Both subcommittee chair Norm Coleman (R-MN) and ranking Democrat Carl Levin (D-MI) “questioned Galloway’s credibility.” The very Senator Levin who has often criticized the Bush Administration. No GOP partisan he. The headline only mentioned Galloway lambasting Republicans. It ignores the charges against him to focus on his attack on Republicans.
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