Newsweek, Matt Cooper, Judith Miller, and reality
by Michael McCullough at 5:16 PM
As Wizbang, Captain’s Quarters, and others have noted, Newsweek has a new article out entitled “Matt Cooper’s Source: What Karl Rove told Time magazine.” To cut to the chase, here is the beginning of an e-mail that Cooper wrote about a phone call with Rove:
Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation …”
Newsweek goes on to say:
Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a “big warning” not to “get too far out on Wilson.” Rove told Cooper that Wilson’s trip had not been authorized by “DCIA”—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, “it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.” Wilson’s wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: “not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there’s still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger … “
The liberals are having a heyday with this, but let’s analyze this new information rationally. As an author and reader of more corporate e-mails than I could ever count, it’s notable that Cooper began by writing “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background” and then later cites specific things that Rove told him about this “double super secret background” over the next 2 minutes. Matt Cooper is a writer and he knows a thing or two about words and their meanings. The first line indicates that Cooper already had his topic — Plame’s role in authorizing her husband’s trip to Niger — before the conversation even began. Cooper wanted to know what Karl Rove knew about the already-established topic.
THE LEAKER
“The implication thus is that Rove did not leak the identity of the “double super secret background,” but rather only elaborated on information that TIME reporter Matt Cooper already knew. There’s a big difference.”
The implication thus is that Rove did not leak the identity of the “double super secret background,” but rather only elaborated on information that TIME reporter Matt Cooper already knew. There’s a big difference. Matt Cooper is a reporter and knows about the meaning of words. His e-mail strongly suggests that Karl Rove was not the leaker but was just the source of additional material.
A second matter at hand is why Judith Miller is in jail. I have already written about this and the reason is simple: Judith Miller is in jail because, even though there is no such thing as journalistic privilege, she is refusing to cooperate with the prosecutor by turning over information to the grand jury. Judith Miller, by not turning over information, is covering up the evidence of a possible crime — yet according to liberals she is supposedly the only good, noble person in this whole mess!
But, the liberals ask, “Robert Novak outed Valerie Plame’s covert identity to the public. Why isn’t Novak in jail?” Again, the matter is simple. No one is being punished yet for outing Valerie Plame. That’s a matter for a trial and the grand jury is simply gathering evidence to determine if there will be a trial and who the defendants will be if a trial is held. Novak apparently is cooperating with the prosecutor while Judith Miller is not. If Novak had crucial evidence and he had refused to testify, he would be in jail, too. That’s it. Nothing more.
So what does Robert Novak himself have to say about the possibility of reporters going to jail? This is from the June 29, 2005 edition of the show Inside Politics.
HENRY: Why is it that there are two reporters out there who may go to jail, Bob, but it doesn’t appear that you are going to go to jail?
NOVAK: Well, that’s what I can’t reveal until this case is finished. I hope it is finished soon. And when it does, I agree with Mr. Safire, I will reveal all in a column and on the air. … And unfortunately, as somebody who likes to write, I’d like to say a lot about the case, but because of my attorney’s advice I can’t. But I will. And there might be some surprising things.
Some surprising things? Things such as that Rove was not the leaker? That would surprise a lot of liberals.
Another interesting tidbit comes from Novak’s October 1, 2003 column:
To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson’s wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.
Not much of a secret? If Plame’s identity was not a secret, then no crime was committed. There may not even be a trial at all.
This whole matter seems to be a coordinated effort to get Bush by bringing down Karl Rove. The argument is that Karl Rove committed a crime by outing the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame, thus endangering her life. The evidence presented to the public so far does not support the idea that Rove was the leaker.
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