Y'all make some good points about opportunism. The thing is that journalists know that if they get caught, there will be consequences. Yeah, they (with their editors and publishers behind them, hopefully) will try to make the best of it, but it is how the game is played, my friend.
Another special thing about the Plame case, in contrast to other leaks you allude to, is the issue of compromising cover in the process, possibly endangering lives of other operatives and informants.
Confidentially,
Gordon Ginsberg

If Cohen's argument is correct, and such political matters were best to be performed "with the lights off," i.e., not under the mythical harsh scrutiny of an independent press, then logically there is no need either for large corporations such as the Washington Post or anyone else to pay lots of money to "journalists".

In which case, major news production companies can hire cheap bloggers and other hangers on to go interview powerful insider politicians and simply write whatever the powerful wish to say.

In fact, Cohen has just given an extremely effective argument for outsourcing his gossip position to India, since any aspiring gossip blogger from India can obtain fascinating quotes and propaganda myths from government officials by calling them on the VOIP phone.

Who needs a Richard Cohen to talk to at an expensive rhetoric, when the exact same lies and myths can be taken and printed by outsourced Indian gossip bloggers at a fraction of Cohen's inflated price?

Another typically spot-on post from Glenn. I only have one quibble.

Glenn says, "The relationship between official Washington and the permanent Beltway media class has become infinitely closer and more cooperative than ever before...Many elite national journalists are incentivized to protect and defend powerful political leaders with whom they so frequently interact and on whom they depend for their access and their 'scoops.'"

This seems to be a plausible explanation but it fails once you look back at the 90's. It only works that way if you are Republican.

That is why the media whores, like Richard Cohen, are guilty not just of sins of omission, they are actively harming non-Republicans. And, by extension, since the Republicans are actively undermining the principles and values this country was founded upon, the media whores are complicit in those crimes as well.

I've been watching this occur for the last 20 years or more. These conclusions are firmly established.

So what are we gonna do about it?

certifiedprepwn3d - thanks, appreciated. now i just wish i could go back and fix the @%!&* typo in that post.

You forgot to mention those communist sympathizers in the Veep's office who enticed Libby to make false statements to the FBI and lie under oath in the first place!

I hope that in the midst of all the chortling and giggling this morning, no one leaves off sharpening the cutlery.

One, two, through and through -- we all know the drill. Glenn has once again brought home the bacon. The only thing missing now is the apple for Mr. Cohen's mouth. Perhaps Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert can find one for us while we're waiting for the oven to come up to the proper temperature.

Here's a similar one from "Dean" Broder:

"The gap between public opinion and Washington reality has rarely been wider than on the issue of the Iraq war"

Breathtaking.

Hilariously put. You have made PERFECT use of Cohen's brilliant excretion.

I forgot what I was gonna' say.

Maybe it was "I love most all you "jerks?"

Or maybe it was a word to the New Yorkers good dickers?

Maybe liberals can purchase a beautifuler combustion, motor mouth, with a broken head gasket? Yoo "Numbskull's" need to steal a 4-Wheeler Buick!

Or how 'bout a rusty muffler that features a rotten wood side rack with a faded painted militant green Farm Stud Truck?

Maybes' a ride in a 1948 Studebaker Farm vehicle for a nominal million dinar fee...(?!?) can relax the USA.

I am exceedingly unembarrassed?

Or am I a too numb-skull-shocked? duh. Never Mind.

I never too sure if I am on the earth's shore counting sea waves that crash upon me throughout all eternity (?) or dreaming THIS:

Or is there a prescribed RX medicinal chore for all eternity...gads. I'll do most anything for a feel of a 'fee-free'...Is that ignorant?

Will we be okay before we get married to each other?

I hope we not all too simple mental dopes...NOPE!

Mentions of the Dark Arts, of which We are the principal patron, always arouse Our attention.

Cohen, he of the irredeemable vapidity, doesn't get it right, of course, but he lurches in the direction of rightness when he notes that the Plame matter was of keen interest in media-government quarters where other leak investigations were not. Greenwald and his colleagues haven't exactly burned up the available supply of pixels in demanding prison terms for the leaks of classified materials that have been irritating to the Bush administration. Opportunism is not unknown among practitioners of the Dark Arts. (Greenwald's a lawyer, so he's pretty much unavoidably on Dark Arts Inc.'s annual Kwanzaa card list.)

The illegal sharing of classified information is a core component of one of the great Dark Arts (journalism) and most readers here probably don't want to see every reporter who has illegally handled a classified document jailed over that (though We would not exert Outself unduly in objecting). Given that practitioners of the great Dark Art of American politics are promiscuous in their use of document classification to restrict information for political purposes, a more or less liberal policy toward leakage probably serves whatever passes for Ye Olde Publick Goode in the minds of mortals.

CIA and State Dept. are not anti-Bush because they're full of Mondalean liberals, but because they're full of career professionals who are themselves for the most part not exactly off the charts on the great competence scale but who angrily resent interference from political types, especially Bushian political types, who are not even on the charts on the great competence scale, for the most part. Our experience is that most Agency Types, like most of Permanent Washington, are politically moderate Democrats of no particular political fervor or distinction. Cohen is correct that CIA is operating at odds with the administration, but is too thick to explore the real cause of that fact.

Our opinion is that any grown man of influence calling himself Scooter belongs in prison on General Principles; it is convenient that this one clearly broke the law. Our sympathy is not aroused. But a puritanical adherence to classified-information laws is an invitation to real censorship of political reporting. A pickle presents itself, if you care about that sort of thing.

We have not had this much amusement from Washington since Minion Milhouse was at large.