The Plame Page

Today's News:

Man of the Year: Patrick Fitzgerald - by Gerald Rellick
My nomination for Man of the Year in 2005 is Patrick Fitzgerald. Anyone who could flush out a sleazy journalist like Judy Miller and toss her in jail without blinking an eye gets my vote. More significantly, though, it was only after Fitzgerald’s tenacious investigation that the media woke from its stupor and discovered that the disclosure of Valerie Plame’s CIA identity was more than just another Washington scandal –

Fitz in Vanity Fair -by Firedoglake
I'm quite sympathetic to the plight of David Margolick, the author of the Vanity Fair piece on Patrick Fitzgerald. He's had to address the same problem I've been struggling with -- namely Fitzgerald is a very difficult person to get a grip on. A simple recitation of chronological facts is inherently uninteresting, and most people close to Fitz are unwilling -- or, as I came to believe, unable -- to give much insight into his character, despite my best attempts to cajole, charm, threaten and throttle them into doing so.

Fitz Declaring War on Press? --I don’t Think So…--by Tom Bevan at Realclearpolitics.com
Even if Foer considers the Plame leak a dirty trick and the NSA leak an act of heroism, that doesn't support the claim that investigating the latter is a declaration of war on the press but investigating the former wasn't. In fact, that sort of thinking is at least part of the reason for the New York Times' credibility problem --

Isn’t it the same thing? by Ted Barlow at CrookedTimer.org
Law professor Glenn Reynolds quotes law professor Ann Althouse:
I wonder if those who screamed loudest about the Plame leak and national security are equally outraged about this new leak?
Pointing out this vile hypocrisy must be the zingiest zinger that ever zinged a zingee. They’re right, in way. Few of us who are upset about the outing of Valerie Plame are viscerally upset about the NSA leak, which we tend to see as a classic whistleblower scenario. As a dedicated Plame screamer, let me try to reply.

Sole Arbiter of Secrets By Eli Lake, The New York Sun, January 6, 2006
In the coming months it is all but certain that more reporters will once again be called by Justice Department investigators to give up their anonymous sources. … …Conservatives in particular would do themselves a favor by resisting the urge to champion this all but inevitable prosecution. It is true that the disclosure of electronic surveillance meant to detect potential sleeper cells is a graver matter than the outing of a CIA officer turned analyst whose identity was confirmed by the CIA to the reporter who broke the story. But a greater principle is at stake.

Bush Spying on U.S. Citizens? With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
The former prosecutor who helped draft the law that Democrats say was violated when someone in the Bush administration leaked a CIA worker's name to columnist Robert Novak now says that no laws were broken in the case.

Sidebar issue:

Sharing our "secrets" with Osama by Glenn Greenwald
One of the most revealing aspects of the NSA scandal has been the way in which Bush followers have been running around shrieking that national security has been damaged and treason has been committed by the New York Times. All of that is based upon the Times' disclosure that Bush ordered the NSA to eavesdrop without judicial oversight (rather than with it). Now that the initial screaming and demands for hangings are dying down a little, his followers are confronted with the fact that this accusation makes no sense whatsoever, since whether we eavesdrop with judicial oversight or without it can’t possibly be of any use to terrorists.