In 2003, the White House made an unqualified pledge to fire any administration official involved in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Now, as speculation spreads that Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was involved in leaking Plame's identity (if not her actual name), the White House has begun putting qualifications on that pledge. Surprisingly, newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington Post have accepted this qualified pledge, as if no change had occurred.
It's a nice bit of bait-and-switch by the administration, perhaps to give itself some wiggle room should independent prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald find that Rove was conclusively a source of the leak.
As reported by Media Matters for America, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said on Sept. 29, 2003: "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."
President Bush, a day later, said that he would "take appropriate action" against "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."
But now, the Times and the Post are apparently repeating conservative spinning of those statements:
The Times reported on July 14: "Mr. Bush's comment came nearly two years after he suggested that he would fire anyone in his administration who had knowingly leaked the identity of the operative, Valerie Wilson."
Meanwhile, the Post reported the same day: "The White House had declared that Rove was not involved in Plame's unmasking, and, when the controversy broke in the summer of 2003, Bush said he would fire anyone who illegally outed a CIA official."
Why the spin?
According to a July 14 San Francisco Chronicle analysis: "Privately, Republicans concede the controversy hurts and wonder why Bush does not simply say Rove did not break the law and clarify that when he said he'd fire anyone in his administration for revealing classified information, he specifically meant someone who broke the law."
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This article first appeared on Journalists Against Bush's B.S. (JABBS)
Edited: LI
Article comments
1 - Bennett
That damn Liberal-Conservative Press!
Nice post Mark. WTF is up with the world these days?
2 - Dave Nalle
>>Why the spin?<<
What spin. You might want to go back and read your own article.
"In 2003, the White House made an unqualified pledge to fire any administration official involved in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame."
"President Bush, a day later, said that he would "take appropriate action" against "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."
You imply that these two statements made 2 years apart are signs of a softening of administration policy on firing whoever made an illegal leak. However, if you actually read the statements, the second, more recent statement can certainly be understood - should be understood - to include firing anyone who leaked Valerie Plame's identity. Why assume that this is a change in policy when the wording is close enough for the intent to be identical?
>>Now, as speculation spreads that Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was involved in leaking Plame's identity<<
This is the real key phrase in your article, especially the word 'speculation'. Right now the leak is speculative, who did it is speculative, whether she was even under cover is a matter of speculation. So you are basically complaining that Bush hasn't fired top members of his administration because political enemies and the press are making unsubstantiated speculations about them.
By that logic, if someone spread a rumor that you were a child molestor because they didn't like you, you think you should be arrested, have your name and picture published in the local paper and lose your job, merely based on the accusation?
That certainly sounds like a nice country to live in. Ever heard of the phrase 'innocent until proven guilty'? Apparently President Bush has.
Dave
3 - David R. Mark
Dave, you miss the point completely.
Two years ago, the White House made an unqualified statement -- a leaker would "no longer be in this administration."
Now, the Post and the Times are suggesting there are qualifications before someone can be fired. A person would have to "knowingly" leak (coincidentally, "knowingly" is a word being used by Rove's lawyer). Or a leaker could only be fired if it was determined to be "illegal" (following the current RNC-driven spin that Plame wasn't undercover, and thus leaking her name is not breaking the law).
I'd expect the Bush Administration to spin things, but I don't expect the so-called "liberal" media (which, of course is just a conservative myth) to buy into that spin hook, line and sinker. But here are two examples of just that.
4 - Dave Nalle
I miss the point because I'm not sure it's there. What the NYT and the WaPo do with the information they get from the White House can't really be considered spin because they have no stake in it. They may be choosing to qualify or interpret what they have learned, but that's not the same as spin in any traditional sense, and of even less value.
Dave
5 - Tao Jonez
wake up Dave and peeps, you got the drill already, but mebbe not in this thread
linkage is here
this lays out how the Bush peeps did in a leak , and the big fed five oh nailed a dude for hitting a London paper with some info from the DEA
ya might know the writer, John Dean, yeah mon, that John Dean
can ya dig it, real enuff for ya?
6 - David R. Mark
Dave -- one more time from the top:
The White House spin.
The media is supposed to fact-check that spin -- say, by looking at their own archives, or comparing current statements to prior statements.
If the NYT and the Washington Post had done so, they would have realized that Bush and McClellan in 2003 said one thing, and the word from the White House now is a qualified version of that.
As a journalist, it blows me away how many times the media lazily accepts conservative spin as fact -- and in fact is one main reason for my blog.
7 - Dave Nalle
But David, the two statements are substantially the same except in specifics of wording. That's the point you seem to be missing.
Dave
8 - s
Dave,
I guess YOU are closing your eyes to the fact that ONE WORD can make a HUGE difference.
"In 2003, the White House made an unqualified pledge to fire any administration official involved in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame."
This statement says that the White House would under no uncertain terms FIRE someone if involved in a leak.
"President Bush, a day later, said that he would "take appropriate action" against "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."
This statement backs WAY off by stating "take appropriate action" which could be anything from a slap on the hand to firing someone. This administration is very good at using spin to get out of things and you are just feeding into that spin. Does your politics blind you so you cannot even understand what is doing on???
9 - David R. Mark
Dave -- there's a difference between unqualified and qualified.
I can't make it any simpler. Are the statements "similar" from 2003 and 2005? Yes. Are they identical? No. Are the 2005 statements softer than the 2003 statements? Yes.
The media should do their homework, rather than lazily accepting things as fact. It's embarrasing.
10 - Dave Nalle
I agree that there's a difference between a qualified and an unqualified response, but you have to also take into consideration that the situation has changed.
The original response was to an as yet unsubstantiated claim that there was a specific leak, and the first response was based on that hypothetical. It was leak=fired.
The current situation is that something was done wrong which may or may not have been a 'hard' leak. The situation is now much fuzzier and the wrongdoing increasingly appears to be less clear than a simple case of someone specifically naming Plame. Since the situation is now less clearcut than the original hypothetical doesn't it seem as if a broader more open-ended response is appropriate?
I think you folks are looking much too hard to find grounds for a complaint here.
Dave
11 - David R. Mark
From mediamatters today:
On the July 15 edition of the CBS Evening News, reporter Gloria Borger stated that "the president has come out and publicly said that he would fire somebody who illegally leaked the name of a covert CIA operative." Similarly, the Los Angeles Times reported in a July 18 article that "Bush said he would fire anyone responsible for any illegal leaks."