Post by Walter on Aug 13, 2004 8:39:15 GMT -5
It looks like the Left Wing media has been a bit too clever for its own good.
;D
The Novak Exception--III
The press corps discovers the First Amendment.
Wall Street Journal
Friday, August 13, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
Isn't it amazing what a raft of federal subpoenas will do to concentrate the media mind?
Back when columnist Robert Novak looked to be the main target of special federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, our professional press ethicists were tut-tutting about how they'd never "hide" behind journalistic privilege to abet a "crime." But now that a federal judge has held Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in contempt for refusing to tell a grand jury the sources for his own Valerie Plame story, suddenly the eyebrows furrow and talk turns to the threat to the First Amendment.
That threat is real. Right now the only thing keeping Mr. Cooper out of jail is that federal district court judge Thomas F. Hogan has suspended the sanctions against both Mr. Cooper and Time magazine pending their appeal. But the judge has taken their argument head on and rejected it, writing that "neither the First Amendment nor the common law protect reporters from their obligations shared by all citizens to testify before the grand jury when called to do so." The danger is that if this lands in the Supreme Court, it will be forced to come down definitively on Judge Hogan's side.
The media powers now wringing their collective hands at this prospect have no one to blame but themselves. As these columns pointed out from the start, in their enthusiasm for a criminal investigation that liberals saw as a twofer--discrediting a conservative columnist as well as the Bush Administration--they were really painting bull's-eyes on other reporters. We await comment from Geneva Overholser, Orville Schell and all the other journalistic sages who were so quick to find Mr. Novak unworthy of the usual press protections.
The point is that the road to this legal jeopardy was paved by liberal intentions. No one can honestly claim he didn't see it coming, either. In his letter to this newspaper decrying our editorial on the subject, Joe Wilson's attorney made the direction crystal clear by citing the Wen Ho Lee case: Mr. Lee's attorneys are now asking a judge in another court to hold in contempt reporters who have refused to disclose their sources for stories fingering Mr. Lee as a spy. As for the Plame case, it's not just Mr. Cooper feeling the prosecutor's breath on his neck. Subpoenas were also issued to NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert and the Washington Post's Walter Pincus--and these are doubtless not the last.
Worst of all, it's unnecessary. The more we've learned over the past year, the more it's clear that all the talk about a "crime" in the Plame leak was simply the standard Beltway practice of trying to criminalize political differences. All along Mr. Novak has maintained that he only named Valerie Plame to explain how the CIA could have assigned an Administration critic such as her husband, Joe Wilson, the sensitive task of investigating allegations about Iraq's interest in purchasing uranium from Niger.
For his part, Mr. Wilson has categorically and noisily declared his wife had nothing to do with his assignment. As he put it to Time magazine, "That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case." A recently released, bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report cites evidence showing otherwise, however. And Senator Kit Bond notes that when committee investigators asked Ms. Plame whether she'd recommended her husband, she had a sudden memory loss. "I honestly do not recall if I suggested it to my boss . . ."
To put it another way, even Ms. Plame doesn't back up her husband's story, and the committee's report that she was involved goes a long way toward confirming that there was never a crime here: Her name was disclosed to expose the politics behind an assignment, not to out an undercover operative and endanger national security. If the political coloring of this case were different, the same press ethicists attacking Mr. Novak would doubtless be hailing him as a courageous "whistleblower."
In recent decades we in the news business have depended less on legal privilege in protecting ourselves from being compelled to give up our sources than on a healthy recognition by most prosecutors that jailing reporters for standing on principle is not wise. What has been unleashed by the federal investigation into the Novak leak now threatens to alter that balance decisively. And those who only now decry the implications for First Amendment freedoms are coming very late to the game.
The press corps discovers the First Amendment.
Wall Street Journal
Friday, August 13, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
Isn't it amazing what a raft of federal subpoenas will do to concentrate the media mind?
Back when columnist Robert Novak looked to be the main target of special federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, our professional press ethicists were tut-tutting about how they'd never "hide" behind journalistic privilege to abet a "crime." But now that a federal judge has held Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in contempt for refusing to tell a grand jury the sources for his own Valerie Plame story, suddenly the eyebrows furrow and talk turns to the threat to the First Amendment.
That threat is real. Right now the only thing keeping Mr. Cooper out of jail is that federal district court judge Thomas F. Hogan has suspended the sanctions against both Mr. Cooper and Time magazine pending their appeal. But the judge has taken their argument head on and rejected it, writing that "neither the First Amendment nor the common law protect reporters from their obligations shared by all citizens to testify before the grand jury when called to do so." The danger is that if this lands in the Supreme Court, it will be forced to come down definitively on Judge Hogan's side.
The media powers now wringing their collective hands at this prospect have no one to blame but themselves. As these columns pointed out from the start, in their enthusiasm for a criminal investigation that liberals saw as a twofer--discrediting a conservative columnist as well as the Bush Administration--they were really painting bull's-eyes on other reporters. We await comment from Geneva Overholser, Orville Schell and all the other journalistic sages who were so quick to find Mr. Novak unworthy of the usual press protections.
The point is that the road to this legal jeopardy was paved by liberal intentions. No one can honestly claim he didn't see it coming, either. In his letter to this newspaper decrying our editorial on the subject, Joe Wilson's attorney made the direction crystal clear by citing the Wen Ho Lee case: Mr. Lee's attorneys are now asking a judge in another court to hold in contempt reporters who have refused to disclose their sources for stories fingering Mr. Lee as a spy. As for the Plame case, it's not just Mr. Cooper feeling the prosecutor's breath on his neck. Subpoenas were also issued to NBC Washington Bureau Chief Tim Russert and the Washington Post's Walter Pincus--and these are doubtless not the last.
Worst of all, it's unnecessary. The more we've learned over the past year, the more it's clear that all the talk about a "crime" in the Plame leak was simply the standard Beltway practice of trying to criminalize political differences. All along Mr. Novak has maintained that he only named Valerie Plame to explain how the CIA could have assigned an Administration critic such as her husband, Joe Wilson, the sensitive task of investigating allegations about Iraq's interest in purchasing uranium from Niger.
For his part, Mr. Wilson has categorically and noisily declared his wife had nothing to do with his assignment. As he put it to Time magazine, "That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case." A recently released, bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report cites evidence showing otherwise, however. And Senator Kit Bond notes that when committee investigators asked Ms. Plame whether she'd recommended her husband, she had a sudden memory loss. "I honestly do not recall if I suggested it to my boss . . ."
To put it another way, even Ms. Plame doesn't back up her husband's story, and the committee's report that she was involved goes a long way toward confirming that there was never a crime here: Her name was disclosed to expose the politics behind an assignment, not to out an undercover operative and endanger national security. If the political coloring of this case were different, the same press ethicists attacking Mr. Novak would doubtless be hailing him as a courageous "whistleblower."
In recent decades we in the news business have depended less on legal privilege in protecting ourselves from being compelled to give up our sources than on a healthy recognition by most prosecutors that jailing reporters for standing on principle is not wise. What has been unleashed by the federal investigation into the Novak leak now threatens to alter that balance decisively. And those who only now decry the implications for First Amendment freedoms are coming very late to the game.