Prometheus 6

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.

We impeach a guy for a blowjob, and you want to let the guy who lied us into a couple thousand dead Americans, a deficit driven economic catastrophe, and put us at the mercy of a bunch on know-nothing assholes walk?

Let the persecution match the crime.

...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.

Spare me. She wasn't hit by a ricochet, she was shot, and she was supposed to fall on her husband. And that "which happened once" is enough remove anyone whose political intent overrides national security from office on general principles.

I have no idea what Fitzgerald will do. My own diligent efforts to find out anything have come to naught.

Is that all? You don't want to get scooped?

The greater issue is control of information. 

No shit, Sherlock.

If anything good comes out of the Iraq war, it has to be a realization that bad things can happen to good people when the administration -- any administration -- is in sole control of knowledge and those who know the truth are afraid to speak up. This -- this creepy silence -- will be the consequence of dusting off rarely used statutes to still the tongues of leakers and intimidate the press in its pursuit of truth, fame and choice restaurant tables. Apres Miller comes moi .

So the Bush regime decides it's in total control of the information, leaking when it wants, shutting everyone out when it wants. Just ignores science when it's inconveneient.

You know what that sounds like to me?

the administration...is in sole control of knowledge and those who know the truth are afraid to speak up.

I have no idea where the creepy silence non-sequitur came from, but it's clear Cohen is more concerned about his own ass than anything else. And his concern is stupid. You think Bush could have pulled off this crap without a cowed complicit media? I think not. They need the media more than the media needs them.