Bush's Slight of Hand

I have wanted to write something on this since the Valerie Plame affair came back into the spotlight. Or, perhaps I should say, the 'Reporter's rights issue' came back into the spotlight with the Supreme Court's ruling that Matt Cooper and Judith Miller must reveal their sources to Special Prosecuter Fitzgerald. It bugs the hell out of me that the Bush supporters are able to use slight of hand to change the focus of a story that is negative to Bush to the messenger. And what is even more frustrating, the media goes right along with that change of focus. Three very prominent examples come to mind:

1. The Dan Rather story on Bush's National Guard record.
2. The Newsweek story on the abuses at Guantanomo Bay.
3. The outing of Valerie Plame by a 'high administration official'.

I am sure there are more examples, but these three come to my mind right now. I know these are all old stories and much has been written about them. But I feel it's good to review what the Bush supporters were able to do in each case.

The Dan Rather story was turned from a story on how Bush used his connections to avoid his obligations to the National Guard to a story on Dan Rather using a fake document to support the Bush Story. I know much has been written on this story on both sides of the blogsphere, but it is not often mentioned that the secretary who was suppose to have written the document (but did not) said that even though the document appeared to be fake, everything it said was true. So the actual story was true! But instead of focusing on that, the Bush supporters were able to switch the story to Dan Rather and the fake document. Fake document or real document, George Bush still went AWOL from his Noational Guard duty,

The Guantanamo Bay story almost seems like a setup. After doing everything it could to confirm that the story was true (including asking the Pentagon about it), Newsweek published a story about prisoner abuse at the prison. After the story was published, their source retracted the story and Newsweek immediately (to their credit) and went public with the fact that their source retracted the story. Again, the major story was the fact that Newsweek published something that was later retracted rather than the fact we are abusing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The facts in their story had already been published in other sources and in stories published since. But Newseek was blamed for anti-american riots that occurred after their story was published (even though the Bush Administration said that the story had nothing to do with the riots). Whether or not Newsweek's source restracted their story, the US has been abusing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

The last story bothers me the most. I do believe that reporters should protect their sources, with certain exceptions. One exception is when they are told lies. Another exception is when the reporter is being used (OK, this one is not black and white. But when a reporter is used to get back at an adminstration critic, they should not protect that source). This has turned from a member of the administration committing treason by outing an undercover CIA agent to a reporter's right to protect his (or her) sources. I don't think that either Cooper or Miller should be considered martyrs. Instead, they should be condemned for not helping the special prosecuter to find out who in the administration committed treason. It doesn't matter that Judith Miller may spend some time in jail, someone in the Bush adminstration outed an undercover CIA agent That is a felony, and someone shoulud spend some time in jail because of it.

It is sad that the MSM doesn't get a clue and realize that they are being grossly manipulated by the Bushies.