Letters to the Editor
ondelette
Published Letters: 1973 Editor's Choice: 19
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The NYT Sunday Magazine
[Read the article: The most revealing three-minute YouTube clip ever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I commented on this on the other blog with the Chris Matthews piece on it yesterday, please forgive if this is a repeat for you.
Max Frankel has a piece in the NYT Sunday Magazine called "The Washington Back Channel". Here is the link (I think it may be a subscription thing, I can't tell because I have one).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/magazine/25Libby.t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin
In the piece, using the narrative of the Valerie Wilson/Scooter Libby story as a springboard for his comments on 50 years of media/government coziness about classified information, Max Frankel details a government/press relationship that sits on classified information and cozily does a dance as to when and why it will become public. Most tellingly, he quotes from his own affidavit in the Pentagon Papers case:
practically everything that our government does, plans, thinks, hears and contemplates in the realms of foreign policy is stamped and treated as secret — and then unraveled by that same government, by the Congress and by the press in one continuing round of professional and social contacts and cooperative and competitive exchanges of information.
He spins a tale which for him goes back to the 1950's and the Army ordering him to leak "nuclear secrets", all the while narrating the Libby trial. But that aint all. He adds all sorts of privileged information about the role of reporters and about who said what to whom, in one case asserting as facts parts of the leak timeline that Henry Waxman said during the Plame testimony his committee had been unable to determine.
He talks about the problems with Judy Miller's interview of Scooter Libby as if he was shocked, and every editorial bone in his body was screaming. But did her editor at the time ask her to do any different?
In his final paragraph, he concludes that he likes the coziness, the backgrounding, the way things have always been done between the media and the government on classified information. And then delivers this line, perhaps a precursor to the Chris Matthews show Glenn is commenting on:
In loose translation: Prosecutors of the realm, let this back-alley market flourish. Attorneys general and others armed with subpoena power, please leave well enough alone. Back off. Butt out.
Which is exactly what the crowd on TV is saying now.
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@daleyrocks
[Read the article: The most revealing three-minute YouTube clip ever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Where is the evidence of the political intereference on investigations Glenn implies? It seems like its all been debunked. Are you still hanging on?
As far as I can remember, denial of security clearances to the OPR will do. And two phone calls to David Iglesias by standing members of Congress will do. And lying to Congress by Kyle Sampson will do. And, of course, firing prosecutors because you don't like the investigations they are doing is a big one.
In all fairness, perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on Karl Rove, just because his record of dirty tricks goes all the way back to being told to "lay low" by the Committee to Reelect in 1972, and because he intimidates reporters, and because he uses the whole government for a political game. The political interferences above involve respectively George W. Bush, Pete Domenici, and Heather Wilson, among others.
I take it you'd rather we investigate and prosecute them? I'll back you 100%.
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Dear santa
[Read the article: The most revealing three-minute YouTube clip ever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I haven't addressed a letter like that in years (chuckle). Thanks for the young again feeling.
It isn't just you. Nobody seems to want to connect all the dots and ask whether while they were discussing dismissing attorneys in 2005-6, they also discussed putting a clause into a bill, who to do it, which bill to do it in, and all that.
Hope they do. It will get really hard to pretend there is nothing to this scandal when that part gets out.
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@santa @Slideguy
[Read the article: The most revealing three-minute YouTube clip ever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I found at least this, from the Friday night document dump, documents:
From: Voris, Natalie (USAEO)
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2005 4:02 PM
. To: Moschella, William; Battle, Michael (USAEO)
Cc :. Blake, Dave ; Goodling, Monica
Subject : Re : . Need Help ASAP
.I just spoke to the.eousa staffer responsible for court appointments. According to him,' there have been two fairly recent instances where the chief judge refused to appoint a.USA. Sheldon Sperling (ED/AR) was'appointed by AG three consecutive .times b/c the chief judge there refused to do a court appt (judge did not like Sheldon). Sheldon is now +.. Presidentially appointed. Alex Acosta has been appt'ed by AG twice due to judge's unwillingness to appoint. Monica -.can you pls confirm this is true?
One other thing to note, though I don't know how to confirm this since it hasn't happened . . recently, there have been situations where the court chase to make a ~'SAc ourt appointment of their very own (no background checks by the Dept, no vetting, no interviews, etc.)'. This pre-dates the current eousa staffer who handles court appointments so, again, I don't how how to confirm. --------------------------
----- Original Message'-----
From: Moschella, William c~illiarn.Moschella@usdoj.gov~
To: voris, Natalie (USAEO) cNVoris@usa. doj . gov>.; Battle, Michael (USAEO)
cMBattle@usa.doj.govz
CC: Goodling, Monica ~~on'ica.~oodling@usdoj.goBvl~a;k e, Dave
Sent: Fri' Nov 11 15:32:03 2005 . .
Subject: Need Help ASAP
An amendment was floated by one of our friends during the Patriot negotiations that' would eliminate a court's ability to appoint acting USA's pursuant to 28 USC 546 '(d). We support eliminating the court's role in the appointment of acting USA and believe that the AG should have that authority alone. Under current law, the AG appoints,'but after'l20 days, the district court for that district appoints.
Does someone in EOUSA have instances in which judges have refused to reappoint the.acting USA that was appointed by the AG.pursuant to 28 USC 546.
The emphasis is mine. They were discussing it before it was law yet, I don't know whether they discussed putting it in, or why their "friend" was doing so.
taken from the doc dump here:
http://www.realcities.com/multimedia/nationalchannel/archive/mcw/pdf/usattorneys/032307_3.pdf
Hope this helps.
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Need a lawyer
[Read the article: The most revealing three-minute YouTube clip ever]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]All you legal people on this blog, 2 questions:
1) Monica Goodling is invoking the 5th due to the "ambiguous circumstances" and after her lawyer cites a lot of stuff, it seems based on alleged partisan purposes for the committee hearing. Can you invoke the 5th due to partisanship? Never heard of this.
2) Her position is listed as Counsel to the Attorney General and White House Liaison. Can you be both an envoy to the White House and the chief counsel to the AG? Isn't DOJ supposed to be separate from the White House?
Please answer.