by emptywheel
There's an odd move in Doug Jehl's article yesterday, purporting to show that there is a third White House leaker.
Jehl spends most of the first half of the article rehashing the published information about Pincus' leaker and (presumably) proving Pincus' source is not Rove or Libby. Then, Jehl consider's Novak's sources, noting that,
One of those officials was Mr. Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, according to people close to Mr. Rove, who have said he merely confirmed information that Mr. Novak already had.
But the identity of Mr. Novak's original source, whom he has described as "no partisan gunslinger," remains unknown.
Immediately thereafter, Jehl considers Cooper's sources, noting that there may be more than the two we currently know about.
Mr. Cooper of Time magazine, who wrote about the matter several days after Mr. Novak's column appeared, has written and said publicly that he told a grand jury that Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove were among his sources. But Mr. Cooper has also said that there may have been others.
The juxtaposition of the discussion of Pincus' source, Novak's sources, and Cooper's sources leaves the impression that the unnamed source for all three journalists is the same person (and by extension, that Novak's second source is not Libby). Laura Rozen, for example, read the article and posted this:
A third administration source on Plame, not a 'partisan gun-slinger'....who? Hadley?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think its surprising that Laura assumes the "third source" is Novak's "not a partisan gunslinger." I think the article is designed to leave that impression. But I think its an effect of smoke and mirrors.
Why do I think this source might be Libby, in spite of what Libby says?
Jehl's evidence that Pincus' source is a "third source" is actually quite thin. He says,
Mr. Pincus has not identified his source to the public. But a review of Mr. Pincus's own accounts and those of other people with detailed knowledge of the case strongly suggest that his source was neither Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, nor I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and was in fact a third administration official whose identity has not yet been publicly disclosed. [emphasis mine]
Note, first of all, the reliance on "other people with detailed knowledge of the case." Right before Jehl talks about Rove and Libby (and in an article that Jehl worked on with WH hacks David Johnston and Richard Stevenson, to whom Rove and Libby must by now have a direct line). Part of Jehl's evidence for the claim that Pincus' source is a third source rests, it appears, on Rove's and Libby's say-so. Given how much of their leaking lately seems to be designed to cast blame on other people and potential witnesses, let's just say I'm skeptical.
Now let's look at the other evidence Jehl presents to make the "third source" argument. He mentions Pincus' article first discussing the source in October 2003 and a recent article discussing sourcing more generally.
Let's look at what Pincus wrote in October 2003.
On July 12, two days before Novak's column, a Post reporter was told by an administration official that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction. Plame's name was never mentioned and the purpose of the disclosure did not appear to be to generate an article, but rather to undermine Wilson's report.
No indication of who that source might be.
Now, I have long assumed that Pincus' source was Libby. Pincus' subpoena came at a time when a number of journalists were receiving subpoenas: Matthew Cooper, Glen Kessler, Tim Russert, and Pincus. All the journalists testified after receiving the okay from their source. And Cooper, Kessler, and Russert made it clear at the time that the source in question was Scooter Libby.
A somewhat confusing contemporaneous E&P article makes it seem possible that Pincus' source was Libby too.
Pincus said he did not identify the source and agreed to be questioned only with the source's approval.
"I understand that my source has already spoken to the special prosecutor about our conversation on July 12 [2003], and that the special prosecutor has dropped his demand that I reveal my source. Even so, I will not testify about his or her identity," Pincus said in a statement.
[snip--there are three paragraphs here that introduce Cooper testifying about Libby, so it's not clear that the subject of the Pincus testimony is the same in the previous paragraphs as in the following one]
"Pincus answered questions about Libby as well," the Washington Post reported this morning. "Both he and Cooper said they did so with Libby's approval." Both said that their conversations with Libby did not touch on the identity of outed CIA officer Plame. "Fitzgerald had focused on Libby as the possible leaker of Plame's name and identity, but the new subpoenas to Time suggest he may be rethinking that theory," the Post observed. "Four reporters have now testified at Libby's urging that he did not disclose Plame's name or identity to them."
As I said in the brackets, this article makes it possible that Pincus' source--who had given him leave to talk--was Libby, since the WaPo admits clearly that Pincus talked about Libby. Possible, but unlikely. The article certainly seems to suggest that Pincus received a waiver to talk to Fitzgerald from someone else, and also received a waiver from Libby to talk about their conversation.
But note that when Pincus talked about this recently (in an article cited by Jehl), he refers to his source, singular. Not his source, plus Libby, but his source.
I wrote my October story because I did not think the person who spoke to me was committing a criminal act, but only practicing damage control by trying to get me to stop writing about Wilson. Because of that article, The Washington Post and I received subpoenas last summer from Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor looking into the Plame leak. Fitzgerald wanted to find out the identity of my source.
I refused. My position was that until my source came forward publicly or to the prosecutor, I would not discuss the matter. It turned out that my source, whom I still cannot identify publicly, had in fact disclosed to the prosecutor that he was my source, and he talked to the prosecutor about our conversation.
Finally, let's look at what Pincus says about the content of the leak.
it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction. Plame's name was never mentioned [emphasis mine]
First, Pincus uses the word "boondoggle," which Wilson associates with Libby in his book.
Over a period of several months, Libby apparently seized opportunities to rail openly against me as an "asshole playboy" who went on a boondoggle "arranged by his CIA wife" ... (442)
The word boondoggle, of course, is not enough evidence to indict someone. Pincus goes on to say that Plame's role was identified but her name was not (which makes it very similar to what Cooper was told). This, I think, is the strongest evidence that Pincus' source is not Libby (although it could be Rove--except Rove didn't yet have his lawyer blabbing to release journalists from their confidentiality agreements in September), because the E&P article states that "Libby did not touch on the identity of outed CIA officer Plame," which I take to mean her employment, cover or not, and her maiden name. Pincus' leaker, in contrast, does say quite a bit about Plame's employment.
I obviously don't know, one way or another, who Pincus' source is. And to some degree, it doesn't matter. After all, Matthew Cooper has always provided better evidence that there's a third leaker. In his first story, Cooper identified his sources as "some officials," not "two officials" as Novak did.
And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
I have always taken this to suggest a very real possibility of at least three sources.
What bothers me about Jehl's article is not so much the "third leaker" theory, since I think Cooper by himself supports that claim. What bothers me is the juxtaposition, Pincus, Novak, Cooper, suggesting that Novak's second source was someone besides Libby and Rove. Because to leave that impression, Jehl relies not on Novak's first article, when he was almost certainly telling too much truth. Rather, Jehl relies on Novak's October 1, 2003 article, when Novak was almost certainly actively cooperating with Rove to cover-up Rove's crime.
The three articles
I'll get to Novak's article in a bit. But first, I want to contextualize it. Because Novak's article actually seems to be the second in a volley of articles being launched back and forth between an Administration detractor and Administration stalwarts just as the investigation got started.
The first of these articles is the Mike Allen and Dana Priest WaPo article that appeared on September 28, 2003. This is the article that made it clear, for the first time, that the Plame outing was part of a deliberate, vindictive campaign.
Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's [July 14] column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife.
[snip]
"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.
[snip]
It is rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another. Asked about the motive for describing the leaks, the senior official said the leaks were "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility." [emphasis mine]
This article closely preceded the beginning of the formal investigation. It also barely preceded, I suggest, the time when the Bush Administration was attempting most actively to obstruct justice. And, it preceded Novak' October 1 column where he recanted many of his earlier claims, in ways that curiously mirrored precisely the new White House spin about the Plame outing.
Novak's column is worth some attention because, while it is now clear that he was lying in much of the column, people still treat some of it as truth. This is the column, for example, where Novak begins to claim Plame's identity was already well-known around DC. This is the column where Novak paints Wilson as a partisan; Novak brings up Wilson's Clinton appointment and Gore contribution, but ignores his GHW Bush praise and his GW Bush contribution. And this is the column where Novak tries to duck out of his earlier vocabulary, calling Plame an operative.
A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered"--working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.
This is the popular, "Plame was a glorified secretary" claim, in its earliest stages. Of course, recent articles suggest that Novak received the official information--that she was covered, an operative--before he wrote the column. And Josh Marshall pretty convincingly demolished Novak's "operative" claim shortly after it appeared.
Novak brings up the issue of Plame's identity again in another paragraph where he tries to refute all of the allegations launched against him.
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.
We may not know definitively this was a planned leak (although we've got a pretty good idea that it was). But we do know that Bill Harlow has said he warned Novak in the strongest language possible. Also from Harlow (as well as many other sources, not least that this case has gotten as far as it has, after several judges have assessed Fitzgerald's case and found it to have merit), we know that the CIA was protecting Plame's identity.
Then Novak writes a long paragraph spinning the way he first learned of Plame's identity.
During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue. [emphasis mine]
In addition to a lot of other tripe (both Novak and Libby have laid claim to the sentence, "Oh, you know about it," for example), Novak tries to refute the earlier WaPo article, mocking the idea that the White House would call six journalists before it would call Novak. This statement is likely narrowly true, insofar as Novak received a leak before July 8, whereas Pincus and Cooper received leaks later in the week; Novak was first. But this paragraph and the earlier one are clearly designed to refute the WaPo's earlier article asserting that the leak was planned, prolific, and malicious.
In fact, in this entire column, there is only one thing that, with the benefit of hindsight, I don't already know to be either an out-and-out lie or a careful misrepresentation. I'm still trying to assess why Novak included the claim that,
The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA Director George Tenet.
The sentence is obviously in there for a reason; I'm just trying to figure out why. I'll say more in the comments.
But given that just about everything in this this column--and I do mean everything--has now been shown to be utter BS, why is it that anyone still believes Novak's claim that his first source wasn't a "partisan gunslinger"? C'mon folks! Consider the source!! Nothing else in this column is true, why would this claim be?
Which is why I'm skeptical of Jehl's acceptance of the phrase now. Particularly coming as it does in an article so clearly dependent on Rove and Libby leaks. Jehl goes out of his way to suggest Pincus' ostensible third source and Cooper's likely third source are the same as Novak's first source. One that Jehl implies, relying on Novak, is no partisan gunslinger. Not only is there no evidence in the article to suggest Pincus' and Novak's first source and Cooper's third source are the same. But the evidence that this source is nonpartisan relies entirely on a column that we know to be a pack of lies and misrepresentations.
But let me return to what I said was a volley of three articles, because it has relevance to Jehl's article.
The third article in this volley is the same article where Pincus first reveals the WaPo received a leak, too. It's actually written jointly with Mike Allen, one of the two journalists who wrote the September 28 article. And in it, Allen returns to his senior administration source for a response to, among other things, Novak's refutation.
That same week, two top White House officials disclosed Plame's identity to least six Washington journalists, an administration official told The Post for an article published Sept. 28. The source elaborated on the conversations last week, saying that officials brought up Plame as part of their broader case against Wilson.
"It was unsolicited," the source said. "They were pushing back. They used everything they had." [emphasis mine]
Yes, this article reiterates, the Administration pitched this story to six journalists. And yes, this article reiterates, it was a planned leak. So in that sense, this article refutes one of Novak's primary assertions in his column.
This paragraph appears just three paragraphs before (then-anonymous) Pincus' admission he had received a leak (this is quoted in its entirety above), which in turn appears one paragraph before two paragraphs describing some of the other journalists who had received leaks.
After Novak's column appeared, several high-profile reporters told Wilson that they had received calls from White House officials drawing attention to his wife's role. Andrea Mitchell of NBC News said she received one of those calls.
Wilson said another reporter called him on July 21 and said he had just hung up with Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove. The reporter quoted Rove as describing Wilson's wife as "fair game," Wilson said. Newsweek has identified that reporter as MSNBC television host Chris Matthews.
In other words, this whole passage reinforces the claim that the WH leaked to six different journalists. And the story of the leak to Pincus appears as part of the effort to refute Novak's article.
Which brings us to the reiteration of the "two top White House officials" bit. This was, remember, the testimony of an official who seemed intimately involved in the planning for the leak. This source may or may not have reason to believe there were only two leakers.
But this source told Allen (presumably) who the leakers are. From the September 28 article.
The official would not name the leakers for the record and would not name the journalists.
I'm more curious than anything else. But I wonder whether, when writing an article in 2003 about the Plame leak, Allen and Pincus were able to share enough detail without revealing their sources to verify that Pincus' leaker was one of the two named, on background, by the administration official.
In the end though, whether Pincus knows his source to be the same named to Mike Allen or not doesn't affect my more important point about this article.
Pincus' source may be a third source. Cooper probably has a third source.
But in an effort to make this claim, Jehl implies that,
- Novak's second source is the same person as this anonymous "third source"
- This source is not a partisan gunslinger
It could be that Novak's second source is the same person as the "third source." I've got no evidence to the contrary. But I don't know why we should believe the claim, coming as it does in an article so clearly sourced to Rove and Libby that appeals to a totally discredited Novak column.
And on the topic of articles volleying back and forth? Here's the first line of Pincus' Nieman article:
And the title of Jehl's piece?
Posted by: emptywheel | July 29, 2005 at 08:35
Also a few words about what that Tenet reference might have been doing in Novak's article.
Jehl's article goes out of his way to suggest that Pincus' source might be someone in intelligence:
Now, recall that the two most common guesses for the identity of Allen's source are Tenet or Powell. Both had reason to be angry at the Plame leak and both might have been privvy to the planning of the push-back.
So if you take Novak's column as a direct response to the original WaPo article, I think Novak may either know or suspect the source was Tenet. So by saying Tenet didn't ask for an investigation, you cast some doubt on his motives for leaking.
Further, I've long suspected that Novak's "not a partisan gunslinger" was a deliberate attempt to set the stage to later (that is, now) cast suspicion on someone else. Who better to cast the suspicion on than the administration source who is bound to be the chief witness as to the intentionality and maliciousness of the original Plame leak. In other words, I think Novak may have used the "partisan gunslinger" comment to set up an effort to later cast blame on Powell or Tenet. Which would almost be witty, if it were intended to incriminate Powell. Gunslinger? A former general? Hahahahahah. Good one, Novak.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 29, 2005 at 08:42
Cooper on MTP: More than 2 sources
MR. RUSSERT: The piece that you finally ran in Time magazine on July 17th, it says, "And some government officials have noted to Time in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched to Niger..."
"Some government officials"--That is Rove and Libby?
MR. COOPER: Yes, those were among the sources for that, yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: Are there more?
MR. COOPER: I don't want to get into it, but it's possible.
MR. RUSSERT: Have you told the grand jury about that?
MR. COOPER: The grand jury knows what I know, yes.
MR. RUSSERT: That there may have been more sources?
MR. COOPER: Yes.
Posted by: pepsi | July 29, 2005 at 10:57
Thanks, pepsi, I thought Cooper had made the three (or more) sources more direct, but I didn't have a link.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 29, 2005 at 11:21
You know, one possibility is that one of the other journalists bylined on the original Time piece (Massimo Calabresi and John Dickerson) have their own sources for the story. The syntax says Time found out, not Cooper.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 29, 2005 at 11:24
I will admit that I got the same impression as Laura Rozen, and I do think Hadley, who seems to be have been part of a trio with Rove and Libby during that crucial week launching the twin attacks on the CIA and Wilson, was involved. But regardless of that, it's pretty definitive that Pincus' source was not Libby, though Pincus did talk to Libby. Here's a recent piece from Editor&Publisher, which includes this:
Pincus said that Fitzgerald asked him about Lewis (Scooter) Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby, a source in the case to Russert, Kessler, and Cooper, signed a waiver giving them permission to testify.
"Libby was not my source but was someone I spoke to on a confidential basis," Pincus said. "I had written about Wilson's trip [to Africa] and spoke to everyone involved in it." Wilson is Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame.
And here's the WaPo from November 2004:
One current or former administration official has told Fitzgerald that he or she had a conversation with Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus on Saturday, July 12, Pincus has said publicly. Pincus also has said his source was not Libby. Pincus has previously said that an administration official told him that day that Wilson's trip to Niger was set up as a boondoggle by his CIA-employed wife.
(both via Tom Maguire)
If you look at Pincus' and Allen's article from July 13 2003, it seems pretty clear that he was talking to a lot of people on the 12th (a lot of them perhaps interested in responding to his article of the 12th), including, I suspect, Tenet and Hadley.
Posted by: Jeff | July 29, 2005 at 12:24
Ah, cool, thanks Jeff.
I don't doubt that Hadley is involved. But then, I wouldn't consider him non-partisan, by any means.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 29, 2005 at 17:08
Jeff,
I wonder if they trying to pin this on Tenet? What better way to get out of revealing a CIA spy's identity than to blame it all on the DCI?
Posted by: emptywheel | July 29, 2005 at 17:44
I think we need the cast the net further out and at least keep on our lists all the people Wilson named, and comprehend that we should be working with a timeline considerably longer than just the early July 2003 period.
If you look at this as a head to head conflict between Wilson and the WH -- and then go back and look for origins, it seems to me you have to begin with the early March dates -- when Wilson appeared on CNN and made the point the WH had considerable evidence contradicting the Yellow Cake claims -- and had evidence prior to the UN IAEA revelation that documents were forged -- that countered the whole Niger/Yellowcake story. The WH response to Wilson's CNN appearance was to set up in Libby's office in the OVP, the "get Wilson" work-up group. Again this was early March, pre-invasion, 2003.
At this point, the "sides" of the conflict are set -- Wilson notes that the participants in that meeting, including Newt Gingrich, Mary Maralin, Elliot Abrams, John Hannah and David Wurmser -- began offering up material to the Republican Noise Machine. He specifically mentions Clifford May.
On Wilson's part, he was backgrounding reporters -- including Pincus of the Post, and Kristoff of the NYTimes. Much of what he had to say was critical of the case for war made by Bush/Cheney. The conflict gradually heats up over this period, particularly after no evidence of WMD is found in Iraq during and just after the invasion.
It is only on July 6 that Wilson comes out of the background and takes ownership of his own story -- though it has been "out there" for a time.
Thus the response (Slime Wilson and his Wife) from the White House. Can't counter the message, even after the invasion, so you have to go after the messanger. All this is part of the roots of the conspiracy.
Again, I think the Morris article is correct, we need to thread Condi through all this, (She had some interest in protecting her Metiphorical Mushroom Cloud), and we also need to add to the mix that what happened shortly after the leaks took place is equally important.
I am not all that Certain Rove was in the midst of planning say in March, but assume he became involved when PR responses were being considered. Apparently Rove and Libby had a falling out over this, Rove being blindsided that leaking information about CIA officers could be illegal. Thus you not only have a cover-up -- you also have a process of shifting the blame within the administration.
Novak's October column thus looks to me to be Rove's shifting and defense posture. Given what his lawyer has put out in recent weeks, I think he is sticking to it for the time being.
But as to who talked to the press, I think we have to add Gingrich, Abrams, Matalin, Hannah and Wurmser to the list of potential sources. -- and I would also add Ari, Card and Condi. (And perhaps John Bolton in the case of Miller, and I would assume Pincus would have multiple possible CIA sources.) Remember, Wilson was a background source for Wilson all through this period, and Wilson certainly had the ability to refer Pincus to others.
Posted by: Sara | July 29, 2005 at 17:46
Sara,
Yes, I think you're right on. I guess I was trying to imagine who Novak/Rove was trying to impugn with the October column. If "partisan gunslinger" is, as I suspect, as much a hoax as the rest of that article, then what's the hoax.
Condi: Yup. If we can get this to trial, I suspect Condi will be in the position of a GHWB, able to claim stupidity or some such thing. But boy does she lie badly, worse than anyone else in the Administration.
And as you listed that list off, I was reminded of something. Recall that May said a former government official had told him of Plame's identity before she was leaked? At the time I thought that would have been Perle, mostly because Perle is such an asshole. But what if it were Newt which, knowing what we not know, would make more sense? And Newt wants to run for President...
Posted by: emptywheel | July 29, 2005 at 20:32
Can we talk Frist?
What happened? Has he been reading DemFromCT's and Page's posts about stem cell research? Did he do a poll and realize the fundies aren't going to win an election the next time? And before you answer, consider how much more irked Scottie McC is than he was over the Rove revelations:
Does anyone have an explanation? How did the guy who diagnosed Schiavo via a videotape cause such a stink? And what will the stinky Tennessean do when Bush recess appoints Bolton?
Posted by: emptywheel | July 29, 2005 at 20:49
Don't you hate when you've just hit post, and you realize you're in the window with the wrong thread open?
Sorry about that.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 29, 2005 at 20:51
I'm an idiot, and not because I'm posting in the wrong threads this time.
It seems that Novak's comment about Tenet:
May also be a response to the Allen-Priest article, which says,
I'm still not sure I understand why WH/Novak are working so hard to deny CIA concern. But anyway.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 30, 2005 at 07:31
I think what is missing from this discussion is the question of why the Jehl piece was written in the first place. The answer might be found in the five paragraphs close to the end, which 1) return us to the matter of who Novak's source might have been, 2) transitions to the liklihood that there were "others" beyond Rove and Libby, then 3) IMMEDIATELY NAMES Judith Miller, names her boss (Jill Abramson), and the fact that she has been promoted to ME, then 4) names HER BOSS (Keller) and his lawyer and notes that everyone in management stonewalled questions from their own reporter.
This is truly a remarkable sequence of paragraphs:
"But the identity of Mr. Novak's original source, whom he has described as "no partisan gunslinger," remains unknown.
"Mr. Cooper of Time magazine, who wrote about the matter several days after Mr. Novak's column appeared, has written and said publicly that he told a grand jury that Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove were among his sources. But Mr. Cooper has also said that there may have been others.
"Ms. Miller never wrote a story about the matter. She has refused to testify in response to a court order directing her to testify in response to a subpoena from Mr. Fitzgerald seeking her testimony about a conversation with a specified government official between June 6, 2003, and June 13, 2003.
"During that period, Ms. Miller was working primarily from the Washington bureau of The Times, reporting to Jill Abramson, who was the Washington bureau chief at the time, and was assigned to report for an article published July 20, 2003, about Iraq and the hunt for unconventional weapons, according to Ms. Abramson, who is now managing editor of The Times.
"In e-mail messages this week, Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, and George Freeman, an assistant general counsel of the newspaper, declined to address written questions about whether Ms. Miller was assigned to report about Mr. Wilson's trip, whether she tried to write a story about it, or whether she ever told editors or colleagues at the newspaper that she had obtained information about the role played by Ms. Wilson."
Jehl all but names Miller here.
But why would Abramson let something like this get into the paper? No ME would embarass herself or the paper by printing the fact that the management is refusing to answer reporters' questions on legitimate news points unless it served some other purpose.
To me it has all the earmarks of a pre-emptive story, the exact nature of which we can't know. Was it a response to Ariana Huffington's strong speculative piece that all but outed Miller? Was it to prepare the reader for Miller's outing by Fitzgerald? Was it intended to pacify a really pissed-off staff?
On the last point, see the level of trust between news staff and management at The Miami Herald in this astonishing story. They are close to outright revolt. :
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072802095.html
Auriga
Posted by: Auriga | July 30, 2005 at 15:40
Auriga,
You've put that differently than others--who have said this story was meant, again, to exonerate Miller, which doesn't make sense to me, for the oddities of the story that you point out.
I don't think it's related to Arianna's post either, though. Arianna's post adds just a little to a lot of discussion that was already out there. The difference is primarily stature (and the allure of seeming first-hand gossip), rather than content.
Does Jehl know that Miller's source is the same as Pincus'?
Otherwise, I think your suggestion--to placate pissed off staff--makes some sense. Although this still has Stevension and Johnston writing, which suggests the WH is still getting some spin of their own in.
Insightful comment, thanks.
Posted by: emptywheel | July 30, 2005 at 16:31