Arianna Huffington: Rove-Plame: The Word from Aspen

[brettdale]

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_22619.shtml

Arianna Huffington: Rove-Plame: The Word from Aspen


Today, instead of my usual weekly column, I'm sending you the latest coverage of a story that illustrates why I entered the blogosphere in the first place: here is a really important story -- the Rove-Plame story -- being largely ignored by the mainstream media and kept alive by bloggers. Here, then, is a blog from me on the subject and a blog from Lawrence O'Donnell , who first blogged about this on the Huffington Post on Saturday. And be sure to keep up-to-date on this unfolding story at www.huffingtonpost.com.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Arainna hits the nail on head

From the way they've acted so far, the mainstream media would rather this scandal just go away (bloggers take note).

Just look at the way Newsweek handled the Rove-outed-Plame story in this week's edition. The editors obviously knew they had a hot story and could have pushed it hard. Instead, it's clear that they lawyered it within an inch of its life -- a bunch of legal eagles with faint hearts removing any juice and most of the meat from it . . . .

Want another example? Just look at how the White House press corps is dealing with the story: by avoiding it completely.

Today's press gaggle took place aboard Air Force One on the way to Scotland. Now, given that Rove may or may not be the subject of a federal investigation, one would think that our intrepid White House reporters might, you know, ask the White House spokesman about that.

But if you do a text search for the word "Rove," you'll see that not a single press person thought that the fact that the President of the United States' most trusted advisor is, at the very least, a key player in a criminal investigation was worth a single question to Scottie McClellan. Not a one.

The MSM, especially the White House steno pool, has been outrageously complicit in the Bush regime's crime. The public wants and needs information.

Perhaps the Blogosphere is Gossip-Driven Reality, but these guys have no right to complain about their readers finding more of what they are looking for there.

[clydefrand]

2. This paragraph begs an explanation. National security...meaning

the CIA? What?


Some of us have theorized that the prosecutor may have given up the leak case in favor of a perjury case, but Tatel still refers to it simply as a case "which involves the alleged exposure of a covert agent." Tatel wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law -- a federal reporters' shield law -- but in the end, he couldn't bring himself to do it in this particular case. In his final paragraph, he says he "might have" let Cooper and Miller off the hook "ere the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security."