Let This Leak Go - By Richard Cohen

[kemche]

email this MF at - [e-mail]

Here's the full article.
--------------------------------------------
Let This Leak Go

By Richard Cohen

Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A23

The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals. As it is, all he has done so far is send Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail and repeatedly haul this or that administration high official before a grand jury, investigating a crime that probably wasn't one in the first place but that now, as is often the case, might have metastasized into some sort of coverup -- but, again, of nothing much. Go home, Pat.

The alleged crime involves the outing of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative whose husband, Joseph Wilson IV, had gone to Africa at the behest of the agency and therefore said he knew that the Bush administration -- no, actually, the president himself -- had later misstated (in the State of the Union address, yet) the case that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger.

Wilson made his case in a New York Times op-ed piece. This rocked the administration, which was already fighting to retain its credibility in the face of mounting and irrefutable evidence that the case it had made for war in Iraq -- weapons of mass destruction, above all -- was a fiction. So it set out to impeach Wilson's credibility, purportedly answering the important question of who had sent him to Africa in the first place: his wife. This was a clear case of nepotism, the leakers just as clearly implied.

Not nice, but it was what Washington does day in and day out. (For some historical perspective see George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck'' about Edward R. Murrow and that most odious of leakers-cum-character assassins, Joseph McCarthy.) This is rarely considered a crime. In the Plame case, it might technically be one, but it was not the intent of anyone to out a CIA agent and have her assassinated (which happened once) but to assassinate the character of her husband. This is an entirely different thing. She got hit by a ricochet.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

Link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101202002.html

KG

[LatinoSocialist]

1. no thank you. I want this LEAK prosecuted

It's funny that he's trying to take the "i'm protecting the rights of whistleblowers" angle.

Whatever, he's protecting Republicans.

[katty]

34. they know it's bigger than Rover, they're afraid of bush family revenge

so let's start putting Fitz on the cross. Fitz is a star prosecuter, it is driving them all crazy.

[RaulGroom]

2. Save your time for something else

Cohen is old and lazy and stupid. You're better off spending time writing to someone else.

[seemslikeadream]

3. This is NOT LBN

It is someone's opinion, who by the way I could care less about

[tridim]

4. But for consensual sex? IMPEACH!

IMPEACH! IMPEACH! IMPEACH!

[ClintonTyree]

45. Yeah, a stain on a blue dress.......

is something that can bring this country tumbling down. Treason? Ehhh, no biggie! Boys will be boys, it was a harmless prank.

WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT! Cohen is the worst, he belongs to the Jeff Gannon School of Journalism.

That the gravity of this situation escapes him is cause enough to have him fired. The Washington Post would do well to put this decrepit old fool out to pasture. He's obviously lost touch with reality. :mad: ASSHOLE!

[buff2]

5. Anyone got a nice long list of all the scandals and criminal

activities this group of fascist thugs are involved in? He needs to see it in black and white. Apparently,he doesn't do any research himself.

[wryter2000]

6. Oh, no...deja vu

Something in the back of my brain....about 8 years ago...some people went after a President...and other people said we ought to get past it and move on...I think there was even a website...

What happened with that one? Did we MoveOn?

We'll let this go the same way the Repugs let Clinton's personal business go...asshole!

[bowens43]

7. Even if it was a just a parking ticket,

I want these assholes prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

[Lindsey]

8. Who is this Richard Cohen?

Is he a freeper?

[brentspeak]

12. He's a fairly liberal columnist for the Washington Post

But he's got some kind of loyalty thing going with Judith Miller. They're both members of the D.C. media upper-echelon cocktail circuit.

[Bumblebee]

16. No -- don't you remember him endorsing Bush in 2000?

he is not a liberal; he is rather a loose cannon, and one doesn't ever know where he will land on any particular issue. I lost all respect for him in 2000 and never read him any more.

[brentspeak]

17. I don't remember even seeing that.

Do you have a link to it? I'd like to read his endorsement of Bush.

[brentspeak]

21. Followup

I did a search, and I came up with something Cohen wrote during the Florida recount. Seems Cohen favored Bush during the recount, though it's unclear who, if anyone, he endorsed prior to Election Day, 2000.

"Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen spoke for many colleagues when he declared that “given the present bitterness, given the angry irresponsible charges being hurled by both camps, the nation will be in dire need of a conciliator, a likable guy who will make things better and not worse. That man is not Al Gore. That man is George W. Bush.”

After reading that, though, it's clear that Cohen is not someone with much editorial credibility.

"A...guy who will make things better and not worse"?????

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

25. What a fucking hack! n/t

[ClintonTyree]

46. Maybe someone should send him that quote.........

just to remind him of what a complete moron he is. "A likable guy that will make things better".... never has someone been so wrong in their assessment of a situation. The country is at the brink of destruction because of that "likable guy". What a turd. :grr:

[Bumblebee]

24. here you go

Cohen's Endorsement of Bush: What It Really Means

Lawrence Auster
Monday, Nov. 27, 2000

Conservative Web sites were all on fire Friday with reactions to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen's announcement that he now supports George W. Bush for president. Gov. Bush, says Cohen, is the man who can best unite the nation after this divisive post-election experience, "a conciliator, a likable guy who will make things better and not worse."

At Lucianne Goldberg's lively Web chat room, many of the participants couldn't get over their joy and amazement that a liberal stalwart like Cohen had abandoned the Gore camp. They said things like:

• "Did I just read this? Am I imagining things? Cohen? Naw."

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2000/11/27/91323.shtml

[Bumblebee]

22. I'll search but he did, and even his family, as he wrote later, was upset

with him because of it.

[CAcyclist]

33. Liberal?

Do you have a column that you can link to to show his liberalness? Because he's not on my list.

[brentspeak]

39. Here's a few of his articles

Not sure what list you're referring to, but here's some of his recent articles on various topics.

This one reminds us that Che Guevera was a murderer:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/11/AR2005071101412.html

This one, blasts Milt Romney and George Pataki:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/03/AR2005080302013.html

This one blasts Bush for Iraq:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/21/AR2005092102504.html

[Demoiselle]

2 points: Richard Cohen=Asshole, and this is not LBN.

It belongs in editorials, mods.

[daleo]

9. A blowjob was worth an impeachment?

But this should be ignored? I don't see it.

[swag]

10. That old fraud Richard Cohen is still writing?

I remember an article from about 15 years ago in which Richard Cohen accused Henry Miller of participating in a "gang rape" in Miller's autobiographical novel Sexus. Apparently Cohen is not much of a reader, since no rape of any kind occurs in Sexus.

Clearly he reads this situation as well as he reads fiction: very poorly.

[brentspeak]

11. Cohen sounds pi$$ed and insulted that his "diligent efforts" to get info

from the Fitzgerald camp didn't yield the information that he feels he is entitled to.

A crybaby.

[Renew Deal]

29. Nice observation

I noticed that too. I just don't get why he needed to write this. What is his stake?

It's good to know Fitzgerald has info locked up tight.

[VegasWolf]

13. Fuck you Cohen.

:nopity:

[Gregorian]

14. Devil with a blue dress on.

I really thought this was a joke. Something is very wrong with the mind of an individual who doesn't see the irony in all of this. I mean, why not go after those evil pot smokers. After all, they obviously threaten national security. One wonders how well this same author would like being an Iraqi citizen these days. Oh how I'd love to see his story change then. And it would. The reckless, careless attitude of an arrogant jerk who no doubt wanted our previous president in jail for something so sinister as stains on a blue dress. Obscene. These people are obscene. They don't deserve the freedom they have drawn and quartered. Does this author not know which country he lives in? This is America. That country with that Constitution. A place where truth is a virtue. Not something that is manipulated in order to profit personal gain. So remove Fitzgerald. Pay off the media. Let the guns roar (as long as they aren't here). Care not about your fellow mankind and the suffering your carelessness causes. Continue spending money on the war. And while you're at it, invade Iran. I say, give Bush another term. Maybe he's just warming up. Maybe he'll get a second wind. Maybe this isn't a nightmare at all. Have it your way Mr. Cohen. Take my tax dollars and throw them into the wind. Would you be happy then? And just where do you want this train to take you? Where is it you want to go? That's what I want to know.

[oasis]

15. A worldwide hornet's nest of Islamic fundamentalists has been stirred up

because of Bush's war, but let's not get to the root cause of why it happened.

Stuff it, you half baked, wannabe journalist.

[klebean]

18. Victoria Toensig (?) on hardball yesterday spewing the same

shit. Minimizing this CRIME to nothing more than mere nepotism.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

19. Cohen's perspective: outing a undercover CIA agent is "not nice"

...but not a crime.

That's all I need to know about this moron and his integrity.

[The Stranger]

20. What's Mr. Cohen afraid of?

Can't handle the truth, sir?

[sofa king]

26. Global Crossing, maybe?

I think that we are going to have to steel ourselves to the fact that this emerging uber-scandal, of which the burning of Mrs. Wilson is only a small component, crosses party lines.

In particular, Mr. Cohen got a cool half-million dollars from Global Crossing before it went belly-up. Then, the part of the PNAC hive-mind which calls itself Richard Perle went to bat for the same company, trying to get DoD to approve the sale of the company to the Chinese, while Perle was a member of the Defense Policy Board. Former President Clinton got a million for his library from GC, as well. The DNC in general is charged by Judicial Watch for soaking up millions in hush money--which is precisely what the RNC was doing on a far grander scale.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/cases/104/perle.htm

Seriously, I have no idea what this has to do with outing Valerie Plame. But since I've been watching this most criminal of Presidential administrations for four and a half years, I've grown patient: I don't know what it means now, but sooner or later it's going to fall into place.

[The Backlash Cometh]

23. This is why white America thinks that only blacks and hispanics are

criminally prone. Because whites keep getting off with slaps on the wrists.

White America needs to see that they are just as prone to crime as anybody else.

[Straight Shooter]

27. This really begs the question, doesn't it:

What does Cohen know, when did he know it, and how else might Cohen be involved in all this mess?

Birds of a feather flock together. :nopity:

[Renew Deal]

28. This is a bizarre op-ed.

What is his stake in this? Why is he writing this? I don't get it. Is he just a hack? He doesn't take the next step of saying why there shouldn't be any indictments. Very strange.

[Orsino]

30. Oh, now that the top dogs have finally begun to testify...

...two years later, you want the prosecutor to give up? Dream on.

[jayfish]

31. I Invite You To Read A Cohen Piece From 1998

Leaving the Scene Of a Scandal

By Richard Cohen

Washington Post

Tuesday, February 17, 1998; Page A15

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when,
attending college at night and working during the day, I plied
the insurance man's trade. Yes, I am talking about the vaunted
Cohen of Claims who, at a young and tender age, learned what
President Bill Clinton clearly never did: Accidents can happen.

And they can happen, as my callers had to confide, in the oddest
of circumstances -- sometimes with a mistress right beside them
in the front seat, whiplashed and itching to sue. Sometimes these
accidents happened, as indeed one did, in the parking lot of a
racetrack when the driver was supposed to be elsewhere. What's
worse, the guy was driving a company car.

My young and innocent ears were beseeched to do something:
Fudge, lie, change this or that. But I could not. The lady in the
front seat might be an embarrassment, but she was also injured.
Private matters are private no more, I had to inform these people,
when you wind up on a police blotter. Are you listening, Mr.
President?

By now, it's clear that he is not. He -- not to mention the
American people -- seems insistent on maintaining that this
matter is about an alleged sexual relationship and nothing more.
Of course, it is -- or, rather, it was. But once an accident occurred
-- the apparent happenstance of sending Monica Lewinsky off to
work where Linda Tripp had gone before -- then the issue became
something else entirely: a matter of integrity.

Back when Clinton first ran for the presidency, I wrote that he
was both man and boy. Clinton the boy had a smirky demeanor
and an unwillingness to answer questions he found
embarrassing. He had to be compelled to explain how he had
avoided the Vietnam War draft and he had to be similarly
cornered before he would allow that he had -- yes! -- smoked
marijuana. Even then, he used the weasel word -- "experimented"
-- and maintained that he had not inhaled.

What was noticeable back then is possibly catastrophic now: the
refusal to own up to bad behavior. This is boyish stuff, distinctly
at odds with the manner in which Clinton has conducted his
presidency, but it may well bring him down. A man understands
that there comes a time when you simply have to take
responsibility for your behavior. For Clinton, that time never
comes.

Now, though, Kenneth Starr is going to hold Clinton
accountable. This should come as no surprise to Clinton because
the independent counsel has been on his tail for more than three
years now. That makes the president's purported behavior even
the more reckless. What did he think would happen if an
accident occurred?

Did Clinton expect Starr -- this moralistic Republican ideologue
-- to shrug his shoulders and give him a pass? Did he expect him
to ignore the clear suggestion of a crime -- perjury, obstruction of
justice, suborning of perjury? And are we, the American people,
supposed to do what Starr will not -- ignore odious allegations
because they are about sex? Presidents have a high and solemn
obligation to obey the law.

But what did Clinton do? He has clammed up. He has said
nothing. An accident happened, the car is still on the side of the
road, but the driver isn't talking. Worse, he seems to have done
what some of my callers once wanted me to do -- make others
complicit.

Did he really have that session with his private secretary, Betty
Currie? If it happened as reported, did he really think anyone
would believe that he had called her in to tell her that he could
not remember being alone with Lewinsky -- an innocent session
to refresh his memory? That's cute, too cute -- like saying about
marijuana that he never broke any state law.

But Currie, looking none too happy after she left the grand jury
room, is hardly the only person Clinton has pulled into the legal
mess. Lewinsky is another, and so, too, is her mother, Marcia
Lewis. Starr was roundly blamed for getting a mother to talk
about her daughter, but some fingers ought to be pointed to
Clinton too. If there was a coverup, he was the one being
protected, not Lewinsky.

In the end, there is but one thing to say about this sort of
behavior: It is not manly. To sweep others into your mess --
rather than simply clean it up yourself -- is precisely the sort of
behavior I resented deeply back when I was an insurance claims
investigator. It is one thing to have an accident. It is quite
another thing to try to leave the scene.

I guess Mr. Cohen's outlook has changed in the last 8 years. :shrug:

[KoKo]

40. Yep....you caught him in the ultimate "hypocratic morality."

I guess the PsyOp's bought and paid for's are all being forced to support the "Miller."

Now that their "Charm Boy" is going down...time to call in the chips for that career of a lifetime. :-(

Thanks for digging that out of the archives. It's always good to have a reminder of what the term "Media Whore" really can mean.

[cassiepriam]

32. Maybe this is making some members of the press nervous?

Not just Judy playing footsie with the repugs.

[antonialee839]

35. What a tool!

[jbfam4]

36. bought and paid for

by this administration. The last line said it all

" Please, Mr. Fitzgerald, there's so much crime in Washington already. Don't commit another."

[bunkerbuster1]

37. Wanker.

He's been pilloried throughtout the left blogosphere all day long for this ridiculous, whiny, wimpy, stupid piece.

But don't let's stop anyone from joining in the fun.

If you live near Richie's office, be sure to let him hear it:

WANNNNNN-KERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

[agincourt]

38. This leak hurt our national security,

By ruining a CIA WMD tracking operation. And the MSM covers that up to protect Bush/Rove.

[Roy]

41. You mean people actually

get paid for writing this sort of garbage?

This is all it takes to be a journalist?
Why is there unemployment in this country?
Damn, where do I sign up?
I can do better than this.

[Catfight]

42. Cohen is advocating treason? What kind of American is he? nt

[Nightwing]

43. Freeper, freeper, freeper!!

Cohen can blow it out his ass!! Idiots like him make me want to :puke:

[MarsThe Cat]

44. when richard cohen "wrote" this-

i wonder if there was more of kkkarl roves cum dripping out of his mouth, or his asshole?
...and when will jeff gannon get the pictures back from the one-hour place?

[lanlady]

47. dumbest thing I've read all year

How can Cohen not understand that revealing the identity of a cover CIA asset is serious stuff? That someone--not Valerie Plame, but the people overseas that she worked with--may indeed be assassinated as a result? That her entire network was exposed? And that every person she ever came into contact with will be under suspicion and possibly "disappeared"?

All this is so fucking obvious, you wonder if Cohen is really that dense or if he's just miffed that no one around Fitzgerald is talking to him on this story. What a wuss!!

[sarcasmo]

48. Emailed him and called Richard a Right Wing TOOL.

[Loge23]

49. Cohen vs. Rich - reality interrupted

I loved this column by Cohen - particularly after reading Frank Rich's thoughtful, detailed piece today on the bigger picture of Plame's outing.
For years now, we have been recounting numerous abuses of power from this administration. After each episode, the administartion's response is always the same - "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"; suspend reality and accept our version of what's really happening. And each time, their version of reality vaporizes in front of us, like the smoke from the hookah in Alice's Wonderland.
Now, according to Richard Cohen, we should once again suspend reality: " a crime that probably wasn't one in the first place but that now, as is often the case, might have metastasized into some sort of coverup -- but, again, of nothing much."
No, no crime here. No war, no death, no ballooning deficit. Pay no attention...Go home, Fitzgerald - nothing to see here. Like Rich reminds us: just a victim, no crime.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

50. I grew up with WaPo and Cohen, used to like them, but they have

essentially shilled for shrub since 2000. I have little use for either anymore. Cohen ought to be ashamed for apologizing for shrubco in this way.

[GoldenOldie]

51. In other words, the DC cocktail circuit has gotten bored.

The Cohen, Toensig's, of DC have expended as much energy as they can muster in attempting to defend this Administration and they have gotten bored with the investigations of who is being investigated.

They have swilled at the hog trough for so long that they themselves are unsure of what they have inadvertently said outside of the Rovian script during their exercises of lifting cocktail glasses and patting one another on the back.

The DC hangers-on are so fearful of losing their personal power in Washington they are unable to cope with the honest Fitzgerald's. They claim total possession of DC as their own litter box and they don't welcome those outsiders who come in to clean it up.

[Raster]

52. cohen, you lowlife piece of shit, STFU. "Let this one go..."

Ricochet, my ass. It was deliberate and premeditated. It was a direct hit.

[Demeter]

53. Let This Columnist Go!

The man doesn't give a care about high crimes in high places.