E&P: Salon Blogger vs. 'Wash Post' Columnist on Libby Jailing

[133724]

NEW YORK The Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen penned a column for today's edition (available at www.washingtonpost.com) which takes issue not only with the sentencing of Lewis "Scooter" Libby to 30 months in jail in the CIA leak case but the whole probe by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. In the end he comes out for possibly pardoning Libby, but certainly commuting his sentence.

Very quickly, Glenn Greenwald, who blogs at Salon.com, responded.

...

Richard Cohen's Washington Post column this morning is a true tour de force in explaining the function of our Beltway media stars. Cohen's column -- which grieves over the grave and tragic injustice brought down upon Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- should be immediately laminated and placed into the Smithsosian History Museum as an exhibit which, standing alone, will explain so much about what happened to our country over the last six years. It is really that good.

...

If even our Beltway media -- rather, especially them -- argues that criminality by government officials should not be punished, and that light should not be shined on what they do, then pervasive government corruption and deceit are inevitable. That is just obvious. And that is why Cohen's column so perfectly captures what has happened in our country and the truly indispensable role which most of our political press has played in all of it.


http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003600521

Salon 1
WaPo 0...

[Missy Vixen]

1. Pooooor Scoooooter

They pick on him and pick on him. Why should he have to go to jail? Is it against the law to commit perjury and obstruction of justice? LOOK at what Bill Clinton did, and he never spent a day in jail!

In the meantime, I guess we'd better let out EVERYONE who's been convicted of perjury and/or obstruction of justice. After all, it wouldn't be fair, would it?

:sarcasm:

Julie

[Elidor]

2. Greenwald's response to Cohen is great. He tears Cohen a new one

That really is the central belief of our Beltway press, captured so brilliantly by Cohen in this perfect nutshell. When it comes to the behavior of our highest and most powerful government officials, our Beltway media preaches, "it is often best to keep the lights off." If that isn't the perfect motto for our bold, intrepid, hard-nosed political press, then nothing is.

(snip)
The Libby prosecution clearly was the dirty work of the leftist anti-war movement in this country, just as Cohen describes. After all, the reason Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate this matter was because a left-wing government agency (known as the "Central Intelligence Agency") filed a criminal referral with the Justice Department, as the MoveOn-sympathizer CIA officials were apparently unhappy about the public unmasking of one of their covert agents.

In response, Bush's left-wing anti-war Attorney General, John Ashcroft, judged the matter serious enough to recuse himself, leading Bush's left-wing anti-war Deputy Attorney General, James Comey, to conclude that a Special Prosecutor was needed. In turn, Comey appointed Fitzgerald, the left-wing anti-war Republican Prosecutor and Bush appointee, who secured a conviction of Libby, in response to which left-wing anti-war Bush appointee Judge Reggie Walton imposed Libby's sentence.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html

[UpInArms]

12. and this graph on why the people who were correct about Iraq are to be ridiculed

Eric Boehlert (h/t Attaturk) previously documented just a few of Cohen's heroic light-blocking efforts over the years ("The case for war is a good one," pronounced Cohen in February of 2003), and my personal favorite is here, where Cohen mocked Howard Dean as a "fool or a Frenchman" for daring irreverently to question the obviously conclusive case made by the Serious Colin Powell about Iraq's massive WMD stockpiles. As is true for so many of our Beltway elite, the fact that war opponents turned out to be so right, and our serious Beltway geniuses so wrong, has increased the contempt for those who were right; hence, in defending the pro-war Libby, Cohen hurls one insult after the next at war opponents and blames the Libby injustice on "them."

[blogslut]

3. yrrrrrrrrrrr....kkkkk

The title is cat typing but frankly, if Cohen can caterwaul while being completely irrelevant, my cat can write columns for the Washington Post.

[Supersedeas]

4. Accomplices and apologists -- the Beltway Media way.

[Gabi Hayes]

5. k for kkkohen

[Canuckistanian]

6. Cohen: "It is often best to keep the lights off."

Meaning that it's best not to poke around into those dark corners where "the dark art of politics" is being done.

Excellent post by Greenwald - one of his best.

[Gabi Hayes]

7. you forgot the best, most ironic part of that sentence:

"As with sex or real estate,......"

the press sure kept the sex and real estate part in the dark when it came to the previous admin, didn't they?

do they have NO sense of shame, not to mention irony?

[Canuckistanian]

11. Ha! I never noticed that

Yeah, you're right. I guess that rule wasn't in effect during the Clinton administration.

[Gabi Hayes]

8. the first response to Joe Klein's similar maunderings at TIME made me laugh HARD!!!!

http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/06/thoughts_on_sentencing_1.html

make SURE you read the comments, especially the first one

can't wait to see what they have to say in the Post comments section, as well

[Gabi Hayes]

9. WOW!!! Joe Klein! change your tune much?

KLEIN: Well, what you're hearing is -- and what's been reported in "The New York Times" today is that she was a NOC.

And let me tell just you how serious this is. Aldridge Ames, the very famous American spy, is doing a life sentence right now for exposing NOCs. Now, the question is whether the people in the White House who allegedly exposed this operative knew that she was a NOC. That is going to be the focus of this investigation, because, if they did know, that makes this unbelievably serious.

ZAHN: I found it interesting your phraseology just now. You said people in the White House.

There are a number of reports this evening saying that there is one person being looked as the potential leaker. And that's Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby? Can you confirm that?

KLEIN: Right.

Well, yes, Libby is one of the names that you hear most prominently around town. Libby and Karl Rove have been the names that have been out there. And I don't know if they are or not. But here's why people put it together with Libby. Libby is to Dick Cheney as Paul Wolfowitz is to Donald Rumsfeld. He is a very prominent neoconservative, who has -- I've heard and everybody knows -- been very upset with the CIA's performance leading up to Iraq.

And so, therefore, people are putting two and two together and getting 36. But his name is the one that's been around.

ZAHN: Did you get any better sense today on where this investigation is going? We heard a little bit yesterday about some of the details you reported about White House staffers being told they got to make darn sure their phone records are available to investigators, that their computers logs are available to investigators. Anything new on that front?

KLEIN: Well, I understand that the Justice Department has gone over to the CIA and informed them that a lot of those people are going to be subject to questioning as well, which means that an awful lot of people in Washington are having to hire lawyers tonight, which is really unfortunate, because there are very few names that are out there in play.

And the irony of this is that, right now, there are a bunch of journalists in Washington, at least six of them, who are protecting some very prominent people in the Bush White House.

ZAHN: It's a very odd position for a reporter to be in, isn't it?

KLEIN: Well, it's also, given the antipathy that the Bush White House has had for the press, it's particularly ironic. But it's the honor of journalists that is keeping this investigation in play.

And, at this point, with four or five names out there, I just can't imagine why the president of the United States doesn't call these people in and say, "Did you do it?" and get an answer and end it right here and now. This is very serious business. The president has in his power to end it.

(CROSSTALK)

ZAHN: And you know for a fact the president hasn't done that?

KLEIN: I don't know for a fact that he hasn't done that. But if he had done that and if it's true that these names are out there, this would be over."

-- http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0310/02/pzn.00.html

guess if it's three and a half years old, it doesn't count anymore, right, Joe?

[Gabi Hayes]

10. this is just too much fun. more from Time comments on Klein:

After reading this blog regularly, I've come to certain conclusions:

Joe is an utter liar and completely in the pocket of the Repblican power structure. He is a brainless scribe who will parrot whatever he is asked to say. He is without ethics or a healthy respect for for the truth.

He posts the odd anti-Bush post once in a while for a single reason: it helps him keep the track record he needs so he can be trotted out by the power-that-be as a Democrat or a person from the "left." But he doesn't even believe those paltry few critical pieces he posts. Those are simply part a calculated strategy directed at discrediting the left wing through the majority of his output. No one but an idiot would believe what Klein says, but that's the demographic that still purchases Time.

Time Warner is a cyncial megacorporation wedded to corporate interests. It maintains this blog simply to bait left-winger and progressives who would disregard its output entirely, were they not given the outlet here to excoriate the fools on Time's staff. This is the only stream of income they can hope to get from the informed sector of the public.