New York Times reporter Judith Miller is in a federal jail cell in Alexandria, Virginia. She may be there for up to four months for refusing to answer special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s questions about her confidential sources in the Valerie Plame leak case. Good for Judith Miller, sort of. More on that later.
Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper is not in jail. He testified after his bosses turned his notes and e-mails on the Plame case over to the court and received an express dispensation from his confidential source, who turned out to be presidential advisor Karl Rove.
This week, the contents of some of Mr. Cooper’s e-mails were made public. Three days before columnist Robert Novak revealed Ms. Plame’s undercover identity in July 2003, Mr. Cooper wrote his editors that Mr. Rove had warned him “not to get too far out” on a story about Joseph Wilson. Mr. Wilson (Ms. Plame’s husband), a former diplomat, had investigated whether Saddam Hussein attempted to buy nuclear material from Niger. Although Mr. Wilson reported there was no substance to the claim, the Bush administration continued to use the bogus information to support the Iraq invasion. Mr. Wilson exposed this falsehood in an op-ed article in the New York Times.
In his phone conversation with Matt Cooper, Mr. Rove allegedly said Mr. Wilson’s investigation was undertaken not at the behest of the White House, but was directed by his wife, a CIA expert on weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Cooper wrote about Ms. Plame, although he was beat on the story by Mr. Novak. (Ms. Miller interviewed people about Ms. Plame, but never filed a story.)
Twenty years ago, when I was a working journalist, I attended a seminar given by the Baltimore Sun’s Lyle Denniston, then dean of the Supreme Court press corps. One of the pieces of advice he dispensed was this: “Never burn a source – unless it’s worth it. If this is the biggest story the source will ever give you and the only way you can get it into print is to burn the source – burn ’em.”
Instead of finishing in second place with a story about Ms. Plame’s secret identity, Matt Cooper could have had first place on a bigger story: “Presidential Advisor Breaks Federal Law, Exposes Undercover Agent.”
Matt Cooper did not to write that story, nor did Judith Miller. Why not? Lyle Denniston was an old-school journalist; perhaps the Washington press corps no longer subscribes to such bare-knuckle sentiments. Does a journalist’s promise to a source include covering up a federal crime? What if, by hiding that crime, the journalist denies the public’s right to know what is happening in government? Certainly journalists owe loyalty to confidential sources, but shouldn’t their highest loyalty be to getting the story?
Matt Cooper and Judith Miller are journalists; more to the point, they are careerists. In the Washington of George W. Bush, no journalist is willing to risk his or her career by exposing Karl Rove’s crimes.
Judith Miller does not deserve jail for her actions in the Plame case, but she should be drummed out of journalism for an earlier series of irresponsible articles she wrote about weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq invasion, articles that left the White House’s outlandish claims uninvestigated and unquestioned. Her sycophancy greased Mr. Bush’s illegal and immoral war. I wonder how many ghosts come to visit her cell.
The behavior of Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller is not new. As we were reminded this summer, it was because the 1972 White House press corps was so afraid of “losing access” by offending Richard Nixon that two crime reporters – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein – broke the Watergate story and brought down a president.
In the wake of all this, the media reviews the denials, weasel words and pledges to fire leakers that have issued from Mr. Bush and the White House in the past two years. Mr. Rove now says he did not technically break Ms. Plame’s cover, because he did not mention her name. He did, however, identify her as Mr. Wilson’s wife. Mr. Wilson has only one wife.
The Bush administration has held people in prison for three years – some of them American citizens – without charges. Evidence seems to point to Karl Rove’s commission of a federal crime. Will the White House remove his security clearance or fire him? Will Patrick Fitzgerald seek an indictment against him? Will the American media hold anyone accountable?
The Plame Game
New York Times reporter Judith Miller is in a federal jail cell in Alexandria, Virginia. She may be there for up to four months for refusing to answer special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s questions about her confidential sources in the Valerie Plame leak case. Good for Judith Miller, sort of. More on that later.
Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper is not in jail. He testified after his bosses turned his notes and e-mails on the Plame case over to the court and received an express dispensation from his confidential source, who turned out to be presidential advisor Karl Rove.
This week, the contents of some of Mr. Cooper’s e-mails were made public. Three days before columnist Robert Novak revealed Ms. Plame’s undercover identity in July 2003, Mr. Cooper wrote his editors that Mr. Rove had warned him “not to get too far out” on a story about Joseph Wilson. Mr. Wilson (Ms. Plame’s husband), a former diplomat, had investigated whether Saddam Hussein attempted to buy nuclear material from Niger. Although Mr. Wilson reported there was no substance to the claim, the Bush administration continued to use the bogus information to support the Iraq invasion. Mr. Wilson exposed this falsehood in an op-ed article in the New York Times.
In his phone conversation with Matt Cooper, Mr. Rove allegedly said Mr. Wilson’s investigation was undertaken not at the behest of the White House, but was directed by his wife, a CIA expert on weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Cooper wrote about Ms. Plame, although he was beat on the story by Mr. Novak. (Ms. Miller interviewed people about Ms. Plame, but never filed a story.)
Twenty years ago, when I was a working journalist, I attended a seminar given by the Baltimore Sun’s Lyle Denniston, then dean of the Supreme Court press corps. One of the pieces of advice he dispensed was this: “Never burn a source – unless it’s worth it. If this is the biggest story the source will ever give you and the only way you can get it into print is to burn the source – burn ’em.”
Instead of finishing in second place with a story about Ms. Plame’s secret identity, Matt Cooper could have had first place on a bigger story: “Presidential Advisor Breaks Federal Law, Exposes Undercover Agent.”
Matt Cooper did not to write that story, nor did Judith Miller. Why not? Lyle Denniston was an old-school journalist; perhaps the Washington press corps no longer subscribes to such bare-knuckle sentiments. Does a journalist’s promise to a source include covering up a federal crime? What if, by hiding that crime, the journalist denies the public’s right to know what is happening in government? Certainly journalists owe loyalty to confidential sources, but shouldn’t their highest loyalty be to getting the story?
Matt Cooper and Judith Miller are journalists; more to the point, they are careerists. In the Washington of George W. Bush, no journalist is willing to risk his or her career by exposing Karl Rove’s crimes.
Judith Miller does not deserve jail for her actions in the Plame case, but she should be drummed out of journalism for an earlier series of irresponsible articles she wrote about weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq invasion, articles that left the White House’s outlandish claims uninvestigated and unquestioned. Her sycophancy greased Mr. Bush’s illegal and immoral war. I wonder how many ghosts come to visit her cell.
The behavior of Mr. Cooper and Ms. Miller is not new. As we were reminded this summer, it was because the 1972 White House press corps was so afraid of “losing access” by offending Richard Nixon that two crime reporters – Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein – broke the Watergate story and brought down a president.
In the wake of all this, the media reviews the denials, weasel words and pledges to fire leakers that have issued from Mr. Bush and the White House in the past two years. Mr. Rove now says he did not technically break Ms. Plame’s cover, because he did not mention her name. He did, however, identify her as Mr. Wilson’s wife. Mr. Wilson has only one wife.
The Bush administration has held people in prison for three years – some of them American citizens – without charges. Evidence seems to point to Karl Rove’s commission of a federal crime. Will the White House remove his security clearance or fire him? Will Patrick Fitzgerald seek an indictment against him? Will the American media hold anyone accountable?
© Mark Floegel, 2005