Newsweek: Miller and Cooper could "embarrass the Bush administration"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8489888/site/newsweek/

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 9:54 p.m. ET July 6, 2005

July 6 - While New York Times reporter Judith Miller went off to jail today, the decision by another journalist, Matthew Cooper, to testify before a federal grand jury could increase the pressure on the White House in the nearly two-year long furor over the leak of a covert CIA operative’s identity.

In a startling turn of events, Cooper initially said in court today he was fully prepared himself to go to jail as well. Then, right after he had hugged goodbye to his young son on his way to day camp, he got a last-minute “communication” from his source giving him his direct and “personal” assurance that he was relieving Cooper of his pledge of confidentiality on matters relating to a Time article that identified Valerie Plame as a CIA official. Plame is the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat who made news when he said that, contrary to President George W. Bush’s assertion, Iraq had not bought uranium from Niger as part of its nuclear program. Bush had cited the African nation in his 2003 State of the Union as one of his reasons for believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

- SNIP -

But with today’s developments, the political atmosphere could change. For openers, Cooper would inevitably have to tell the grand jury exactly which “government official” had “noted” to Time that Plame worked for the CIA, as his original article put it. That could well produce some level of nervousness. Assuming the official works for the White House, and Fitzgerald’s probe has focused heavily, if not exclusively on White House staff members, it means there will be direct testimony from a reporter that somebody on the president’s staff did something that was publicly denied—a potential political embarrassment. For another, the specter of Miller being carted off to jail means she is going to jail to protect somebody else in the president’s employ—another situation that in other respects might be viewed as politically untenable.

The president’s defenders have, in the past, derided Fitzgerald’s investigation, saying the alleged retaliation was a typical political defensive strategy against an obnoxious public critic. Wilson had suggested that Rove should be “frog-marched” out of the White House, in handcuffs. The statement was much criticized at the time as an example of the partisanship of the former diplomat. But regardless of the ultimate culprit, Wilson has not backed off an inch. “The fact that there was a White House smear campaign was unethical to say the least,” Wilson said in an interview today, adding that, in his view, “there’s no reason” the White House should not provide a public accounting of what took place.

[DBoon]

1. embarrass?

Yeah it's a real bummer when you are indicted. Sort of embarrassing. Something you might have to explain to those wealthy donors you hang out with. These social faux pas things are really embarassing.

[PATRICK]

2. embarrassment, "politically untenable"

Please pass the tissue. If not for the fact that these insolent traitors
are also abject cowards they should not fear anyone being able to figure out what level of embarrassment and tongue clucking should be meted out.

A law was broken. Reporters abetted revealing secret sources of national security or political ends NOT for journalism- as it is know outside the American boundaries.

They should already be paying the "political" price in spades. Just trying to stay out of jail should be the next concern, but I am afraid that is wishful thinking among those of us who hope there is more strength in the law of the land than currently exists.

The way the cowed mongrel mag plays the tune neither price is likely at all. Which leaves it only on the shoulders of Fitzgerald, to shoulder the integrity of the nation.

[Coexist]

3. You can't embarrass people with no sense of shame

you can only piss them off.

[yellowcanine]

4. As long as Chaney "skates" on the Halliburton and Enron scandals

I will not believe that treasongate is going anywhere.

[usg353d]

5. I wish it said....

Newsweek: Miller and Cooper could "destroy the Bush administration"

[Pithy Cherub]

6. Oh for heaven's sake! The truth is a healing balm

not an embarrassment. Again I ask media types, if you come into a job with only your integrity and you "leave/exit" without it, who is responsible?
:eyes:

[tandem5]

7. yeah being indicted for treason... teehee

is um embarrassing. :blush: