Why Has There Been No "Leak" from a Member of the Elite Press Corps?

[BurtWorm]

Why has no paper or other media source led with a story about the identity of the leakers in the administration based on the word of a journalist who asked not to be named? My theory: these journalists, like Mitchell and Novak, are protecting not their "sources." I mean, if you knew your source was going to wind up in jail or out of power, why hold onto him? Why protect him? No, they're protecting the whole Bush administration. They know that if the leaker goes, some other dominoes may fall. And why are they doing that?

[Booberdawg]

1. I disagree. Protection of sources among journalists is a higher

principle than this one case. It cuts both ways, for example, it works in favor for another "Deep Throat".

[BurtWorm]

2. So Andrea Mitchell will be using Scooter Libby to do stories

on country club prisons? I mean what about these guys is worth protecting?

PS: What if she or another journalist leaks anonymously? Wouldn't that be a responsible thing for a journalist to do in this instance? No less irresponsible than the Bushist leakers, right?

[TexasPatriot]

6. anonymous leaking

well, a number of reporters leaked to Julian Borger a couple days ago
--
http://stream.guardian.co.uk:7080/ramgen/sys-audio/Guardian/audio/2003/09/30/300903borger.ra
-- about 1:20 in that it was Rove... Which would explain why we haven't seen anyone burn for it yet

But I've been asking this question on different boards for a number of days now. This was what I posted on the Post board:

---

I'm still wondering at how this investigation serves the president. The story is already in the press' hands - there are 6 reporters who got the calls. The headlines are probably written and waiting.
So what can this delay do for Bush? Why sit on it? Why take the country through the legal charade? Well - it provides Bush with rope. Lots of rope. If there's anything like a coverup, or a failure to find the same answer as the 6 reporters already have, people will be asking a much much tougher question of the administration. "Did you participate in an effort to subborn justice" Every day it gets worse.

Assuming Bush wasn't involved at the start of this (and i'm not saying he was)- what happens if he gets involved trying to save "Bob from Accounting". Why hasn't the whitehouse done the threat analysis on this one - realized how explosive it is - and cut their losses? There's some kind of fantasy land thing here - and I hope it's not indicative of a larger problem, namely that the administration sees other more substantive issues with the same and-I-believe-in-elves-too psychotic break from reality approach.

---

To some degree the post is a honeypot - because the logical answer seems to be that the WH can't out Rove (or Scooter, to believe some of the other inuendo). But this really is quite the exercise in absurd political bungling. In theory there are 6 reporters and god knows how many editors who have this information. I can't imagine that they would let the country go through another Pub vs Dem RAW IS WAR Smackdown. This can't be considered a 'normal no one is going to find the leak' situation. It's not like Watergate - the Post already has the story, the leakers, hell - they know it all...

How is it in the public interest to hold the story?

I'm waiting for the rightwing to accuse the Post of holding the story because they're all part of a 'vast leftwing conspiracy' to entrap the WH into breaking even more laws.

[BurtWorm]

7. How is it in the public interest to hold the story?

That is the question. It's not in anyone's interest. People are following standard operating procedure for a situation that is not standard.

[Stephanie]

8. It will come out - the info is already in too many hands

Welcome to DU TexasPatriot!

Those six reporters have surely already leaked it to third parties. It seems clear that Wilson received some phone calls from them that must have been along the lines of "karl (or whoever) just told me that your wife is CIA - do you have any comment?" Because Wilson seems pretty sure he knows who it was.

Whoever took Novak's call at the CIA to confirm knows who it is.

Whoever those six reporters talked to knows - their editors, for instance. Andrea Mitchell knows, Brokaw says they decided not to run with it. Is Brokaw obligated to protect Mitchell's source? Who else was in the meeting when the decision was made?

I think it must be an open secret in DC. And those third parties who are NOT journalists protecting sources have no constraints. They will talk when they are asked.

[Flying_Pig]

4. Well Boober, it's become pretty obvious over the last several years,

the press HAS NO PRINCIPALS! They have lied, and acted as propaganda merchants for the fascist takeover of our government. They have spewed PNAC propaganda from newspaper, to television, to radio. They have enabled the Bush/BFEE cabal to get away with the murder of tens of thousands (including perhaps, those killed on 9/11), the illegal invasion of other nations, the destruction of our economy, and the emptying of our Treasury.

They have no fucking principals!! Many are guilty of treason and sedition, and should be arrested and tried for said same. Further, the "Fairness Doctrine" should be reinstituted by executive order (are you listening Dem candidates??), and, RICO and anti-monopoly statutes should be invoked against all large-scale corporate media.

We'll have to "force" them the find some principals again, and we must, for the survival of our democracy.

:grr:

[BurtWorm]

5. There might be more immediate remedies

than revolution.

[Resistance Is Futile]

9. Limits to principles

There is a difference between protecting a source who is at risk of reprisal for getting the truth out and harboring a criminal who is spreading information with the intent to cause harm to an innocent third party.

Plame's outing was a hair removed from attempted murder and anyone who knows the identity of the persons responsible has just as much of an obligation to come forward as they would have if they had witnessed a shooting in the street. To do any less is to cast off the privilage of being a civilized member of the human race and join the ranks of the savages.

[BurtWorm]

10. If anyone read my piece about First Amendment Perversion

it mentions something I've seen only in the UK Guardian that is central to this case: the US Supreme Court has ruled in a case every journalist should be familiar with that reporters have a responsibility to be forthcoming about crimes they have knowledge of as much as any other citizen. Novak can try to protect his source, but if the govt can't identify the leakers through other means, Novak can expect to spend time in jail or cough up their names. It depends how much of a believer in the First Amendment protection of the press he is. I don't think it will get that far. I think, as other posters here have pointed out how wide this net was cast, someone's going to spill the beans before they get to Novak. And the other ones are going to have less recourse to the First Amendment than Novak.

[TacticalPeek]

11. Accessories, I say.

:grr:

[BurtWorm]

3. The elite press is invested in keeping the Bushists from falling

Get it? They're part of the same class: the ruling class. If they viewed themselves as citizens and not part of the ruling class, they would consider it treasonous not to name the traitors who leaked Plame's identity. But because they are alienated from the citizenry, they view it as necessity to protect the government from ruin. It's not Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney (allegedly ;) ) whom they're protecting. It's their mother Source: the Government. The elite press has been utterly coopted. Get it?

[TacticalPeek]

12. They're afraid we'll break it because they mistakenly think it is fragile.

The chimp's fragility and their perception of the country as fragile after 9/11 makes them hesitant and lost over 'Dear, dear; what to do?'. The perfect victim for Rovian tactics.