bulefty is historically correct about Lippmann--one of the founders of The New Republic, btw.

The opposite view was upheld by John Dewey (also involved with TNR early on), who argued against Lippmann (they wrote a few books back and forth in the 20s) that public discourse should be question-driven from below, rather than expert knowledge-driven from above.

A very useful explanation of how these approaches differ can be found toward the end of Good News, Bad News: Journalism Ethics and the Public Interest one of the shortest and most illuminating works of media criticism ever published. Written in 1999, before the blogosphere took off, it nonetheless describes precisely a proper rationale for the inquistive and disputive functions of the blogosphere as engines of democratic discourse--with journalism as but one specific form such discourse takes.

Nonetheless, despite his original philosophical orientation, Lippmann was one of the few establishment voices who opposed the Vietnam Was from early on. So it would be unfair to assume he would be backing up Lights Out on this one.

Dear Mr. Cohen:

There are a few factual inaccuracies in your column requiring correction:

"At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), (Mr. Fitzgerald) was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department"

Actually, it was the Central Intelligence Agency who urged investigation of the leaking of Ms. Plame's identity. If the CIA had not demanded that investigation, it most certainly would never have been ordered.

Further, Richard Armitage is not the leaker; he merely relayed the classified information from the leaker (who has yet to be identified and held to account - contrary to President Bush's promise) to someone else. This is an important distinction that, it is hoped, you will clarify to your readers.

"...government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off."

Mr. Cohen, this is astounding. You are saying that the mission of the Fourth Estate is comparable to sexual pleasure and base real estate transactions? Where is the logic in that? Perhaps you do not respect your profession, or - more likely - this is rhetorical excess. The job of the press is to Keep The Lights On, sir. Concerning governmental affairs, only in the matter of gravest national security (D-day landing intelligence, for example) should the press censor itself. Perhaps it's okay to lie while "practicing the dark art of politics," but lying to a grand jury is a crime. This was entirely preventable by Mr. Libby.

"The upshot was a train wreck -- mile after mile of shame, infamy, embarrassment and occasional farce,..."

Mr. Libby brought the "shame, infamy, and embarrassment" on himself by lying (repeatedly) to officers of the court. The farce is that confidential cover of a CIA operative was used by the White House in a petty, petulant act of revenge against a whistle-blower's wife. This fact is not in dispute.

"As Fitzgerald worked his wonders, threatening jail and going after government gossips with splendid pluck, many opponents of the Iraq war cheered...."

Many? How many? By extension, we can infer that 'many' also did not cheer. Whatever you judge to be (arguably) bad behavior on the part of 'many' does not condemn everyone else, does it? Again, there is a failure of logic here.

"They thought -- if "thought" can be used in this context -- that if the thread was pulled on who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Robert D. Novak, the effort to snooker an entire nation into war would unravel..."

How do you know this. Are you a mind reader? Absent sourcing, this is opinion stated as fact. Perhaps you have sources for this conclusion of yours. It would be appropriate for you to cite them.

It is apparent that for some reason you disparage Mr. Fitzgerald for doing his job, in service of the concept that we are a nation of laws, not men. What should he have done? The CIA prodded the Department of Justice into doing its job of enforcing the law, in order to protect covert agents. Mr. Fitzgerald uncovered wrong-doing during the course of his investigation, which he was required - by law and by his oath to preserve the Constitution of the United States - to pursue. This was not an oversight issue; it was a law-enforcement issue.

Dear Mr. Cohen, I apologize for my meager writing abilities. I hope that my points are clear. I am disappointed that you seem to be of the opinion that employees of the White House should not be held to account for breaking the law in pursuit of political agendas, but of course, you are entitled to your feelings. I hope you will correct the factual inaccuracies enumerated above.

Sincerely,

Gordon Ginsberg

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.