There are a couple of questions thrown up in the air recently, questions that are bigger than the usual political bias of blogs. In the blogs, we’re not exactly in a dialogue. We’re Left or Right, Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican. We’re not even always in a dialogue with the Press [without whom, we wouldn’t have anything to write about]. Blogs from all sides of the political spectrum criticize the Press.
Dan Froomkin, Eschaton, Firedoglake, and the Huffington Post are all weighing in on something Tim Russert said several times in his testimony at the Libby Trial:
"My personal policy is always off the record when talking to government officials unless specified."…"Specifically, no. But when I talk to senior government officials on the phone, it’s my own policy our conversations are confidential. If I want to use anything from that conversation, then I will ask permission."
In the cross-examination, Ted Wells couldn’t talk enough about the paradox between Russert’s talking openly with the F.B.I. about his contact with Scooter Libby yet never mentioning it publicly and his attempt to avoid testifying about it, claiming reporter confidentiality. Russert’s response was to make distinctions, including the one above, to explain himself. I didn’t have much trouble following his behavior myself, but that’s not the point here. As always, Froomkin says it best, referring to Russert’s assumption of confidentiality with "senior government officials." He writes, "That’s not reporting, that’s enabling."
While I’m not sure that Russert is a total culprit here, given the nature of his show and his job in Management, I’d rather separate the issue from him altogether. There is a modern question about the Press – particularly now. They’ve let us down, and this Valerie Plame story shows us how. This Administration has used the Press during the campaigns in 2000 and 2004 as a vehicle for their own gain. They’ve created a wall of secrecy and actively used the Press to their own advantage. The blogs and Talk Radio have come into being to deal with the Press itself, from both sides. We on the Left call them the MSM, a contemptuous term. Those on the Right call them the Liberal Media with equal disdain.
Frankly, I don’t think this has anything to do with the Press. I think it has to do with the Bush Administration. We eat each other up and eat up the Press because our current government plays the news like it’s an advertising media, a one way communication. We’re attacking the Messenger. If we had a "normal" government, I expect we’d have a "normal" Press. That’s what I think…
Yesterday’s encounter with Douglas Feith brings up another question that transcends the concrete issue of what he did at the Pentagon. Frankly, I think Feith is a weasel, but he did bring up an issue yesterday that’s worth thinking about. The Neoconservatives have been attacking the C.I.A. for over a decade. Early on, it was Michael Ledeen, Laurie Mylroie, John Bolton, the Weekly Standard, the Project for the New American Century. Yesterday, Feith was spouting that criticism to anyone who would listen. While most of us think that the Neoconservative targetting of the C.I.A. was because the Intelligence Agency did not support their "Bush Doctrine" of American Dominion, pre-emption, and xenophobia about the Arabs, they do have the right to question how the Agency operates. In today’s Weekly Standard we read:
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The inspector general found that Feith’s office engaged in alternative intelligence analysis (i.e., not emanating from the CIA) and deemed those activities "inappropriate." He’s both right and wrong. As this magazine reported at the time, there is no question that the Feith shop was conducting analysis, their denials notwithstanding. But what’s wrong with alternative analysis? As former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy asks in National Review:
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To be fair, this is a defensive article. The Weekly Standard published Feith’s Top Secret Memo to the Senate in November, 2003 claiming Al Qaeda and Iraqi ties – a memo Feith himself may have leaked. So, yesterday’s article is something of a defense of Feith and their magazine. However, for the moment, let’s assume that their complaint about the C.I.A. and its bureaucracy is a legitimate complaint. What Feith did was to set up an alternative Intelligence Agency in the Pentagon, an Agency that "replaced" the C.I.A. and produced a series of wild, opinion-laced, products that the President and Vice President spouted for literally years as solid intelligence information.
If you think that an Agency has become too bureaucratized, do you replace it with a "wild thing" managed by an "idealogogue?" The obvious answer is "No." They have a right to complain, to ask for a more "creative" C.I.A., but replacing it with Feith isn’t the answer. It’s another issue with this abnormal Administration. If they don’t like something in government, they just change it. It’s the expediency of the moment that drives their governmental style, not the government they’ve been given. Again, our problem isn’t the C.I.A. or the Department of Defense. It’s not even their ideology. It’s an Administration that manipulates government and its Agencies just like it manipulates the Press.
There’s only one enemy in the current American story: the Administration of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley, and their few operatives that are still around. And there’s only one solution. All "issues" these days come down to the same thing.
There is a Unitary Executive just like they say. Lets get rid of it as a unit!
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