If this had happened under Clinton, heads would have rolled....
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Why Isn't Bob Novak Going to Jail?
By Tony Norman
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Friday 18 February 2005
Will someone please explain in simple, easy-to-understand language,
why we never see right-wing pundit Bob Novak's name mentioned in the
same breath as reporters facing jail time for contempt in the Valerie
Plame affair?
Earlier this week, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court
in Washington upheld an earlier court ruling that New York Times
reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper should
be jailed for contempt for failing to disclose the source of a story
neither had any intention of publishing in the first place.
Meanwhile, Bob Novak, the only columnist in the country who
actually published Plame's identity in violation of federal law, sits
comfortably ensconced on CNN's "The Capital Gang" bloviating as usual.
Miller and Cooper will probably go to jail for "witnessing" a
federal crime and refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigating
the leak of a CIA agent's identity. So why is it that only two of the
three reporters who allegedly "witnessed" the crime are being
threatened?
Novak not only knows the identity of the "senior White House
official" who leaked the information to Miller and Cooper, he willingly
became a conduit for that information.
What we don't know is whether Novak revealed his source to
prosecutors, or whether he is simply enjoying the fruits of years of
toadying to the White House.
The malicious White House official's intention appears to have been
to discredit Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Ambassador Wilson attracted the White House's ire by writing an opinion
piece for The New York Times contradicting President Bush's claim in
his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had sought to acquire
uranium from Niger.
Ambassador Wilson had been a part of a high-level delegation sent
to Africa to investigate. Instead of finding proof Niger sold uranium
to Iraq, Wilson discovered documents so crudely forged that only an
idiot would believe they incriminated anyone. Wilson reported his
findings to the State Department, but the president repeated the urban
legend in the run-up to the Iraq war, anyway.
In going after Wilson, a White House official decided that "outing"
the dissident ambassador's wife was acceptable collateral damage --
federal crime or not. Novak agreed and published her name, ending the
career of an effective covert spy in the Third World and endangering
her contacts.
After Plame's cover was blown by a White House official and their
flunky in the Washington press corps, there was immediate disgust and
outrage in the intelligence community.
Congressional investigations were threatened and a grand jury
convened. In the perverse logic of the nation's capital, subpoenas were
sent to reporters who merely sat on the information Novak published.
While Miller and Cooper face serious jail time for upholding the
principle of source confidentiality, Novak continues perfecting his
million-dollar scowl on "Crossfire."
Don't you just hate double standards? It makes you wonder how the
self-anointed "Prince of Darkness" can skate so blithely through this
firestorm without getting singed.
Ironically, Miller's coverage of the faulty intelligence leading up
to the war wasn't nearly as critical of the president's rationales for
war as it should have been, yet she's in as much jeopardy as Bush
skeptic Cooper.
The persecution and prosecution of reporters is taking place at a
time when the White House has perfected the art of manipulating the
Fourth Estate. With recent revelations that three prominent columnists
were paid "consultants" for administration policies, it's easy to see
why the First Amendment isn't taken particularly seriously these days.
And then, with the announcement that "Jeff Gannon," a proud
sycophant of the White House press corps, is actually James Guckert, a
Republican dirty trickster and homosexual prostitute, one has to wonder
whether this administration's contempt for journalists knows any
bounds.
As bad as things are now, there's still room for it to get a little
worse.
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