Libby crowd is, like, so adolescent

[struggle4progress]

In capital corridors, as in junior high school hallways, information is power - whether it is true or false

BY KELLY MCBRIDE

... Pull back the curtain on the flow of information in the nation's capital, and the White House and the Washington press corps are so, like, junior high.

Karl Rove, Richard Armitage, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney - they're the bullies who run the game. They get power not just from their offices, but from their ability to use all information as a weapon. And it doesn't matter what kind of information: true, false, fact, opinion. A well-timed, well-placed comment is the political equivalent of a sniper's bullet. Before you know it, someone's doing detention.

You remember those big shots from seventh grade. Everything they did and said was calculated to enhance their own agenda. They might happen to casually mention certain facts, like, "That Joseph Wilson, he doesn't know anything. Didja know his wife got him that junket to Niger?" And pretty soon it's all over the playground ... I mean the press ...

Don't you miss seventh grade? ...

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-opmcb095122590mar09,0,3004237.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines

Kelly McBride is the ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a training center for journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla.