Zodiak

I figured that citing the National Review as being the obvious conservative biased source would not deter some from insisting on its iron-clad journalistic integrity, so I decided to do a little research and actually go after one fact of the article to see where the facts lead me. Here is what I found in 30 minutes of research:

The article cites a friend-of-the-court briefing filed by a lawyer on behalf of 36 news organizations. Firstly, this is a briefing written by the trial lawyer, which is a much-maligned group by the right-wing, especially when the Vice-Presidential nominee is from the other party; the first bit of hypocrisy comes from using a trail-lawyer's brief as evidence, but I digress.

Next, if one goes to the actual 40 page briefing, the citation containing this accusation (on page 7 of the briefing) only cites one article from July 23rd, 2004 article of the Washington Times as its source that Valerie Plame's name was well-known before Novak's column. I dug a little deeper and got the article, which was written by prominent conservative writer Bill Gertz. The article is two paragraphs long and says that the Russians may have known her identity prior to Novak knowing it, and cites "officials" who spoke under conditions of anonymity. That is it....no explanations or details given. What's more is that the lawyer says that Cuba was mentioned in the article, and the two paragraphs I read had nothing of Cuba in it. It is not nice to file a briefing that misquotes articles....even so this article is not "evidence".

Mind you, this is not 36 news organizations all contesting that they knew Valerie Plame's identity before Novak's column; this is a laywer citing one of the most conservative writers in Reverend Moon's Washington Times as a reason to halt proceedings and not force Cooper and Miller to reveal their sources. Of course, that briefing was filed on March 23rd, 2005 and has since been rejected, as evidenced by Judith Miller's incarceration.

So, the National Review is citing a laywer's document that cites a conservative writer from a questionably-owned newspaper who gave no details and failed to name his source, who regardless could have been easy plants by Bush administration officials looking to give some cover to Rove in the future. (this is a known Rove tactic)

Nonetheless, it is a shaky source to be making such bold determinations of guilt or innocence independent of the grand jury's findings. Only an obviously biased source would use such flimsy "evidence" to convince their followers that nothing illegal happened.

And that does not even address the fact that regardless of the publicity of her identity, the CIA determines whether it is classified or not, and the CIA is the one pressing this matter to prosecution. Is there a standard form 312 filed to declassify Plame? If so, it would be on record and would exonerate all parties involved. If the right wants to defend Rove, this document would do it, but no such filing is known to exist to this date.

Also, Judith Miller, who insisted on publishing everything Chilabi and the Bush administration said about WMDs in Iraq works for the New York Times, which tweaks the right equally as it does the left. This is in contrast to the Washington Times and the New York Post, which are both very pro-GOP on average, but even they publish some real blanced news from time to time. The National Review is no more unbiased than The Nation (which does have conservative writers, at least) and should not be used in a political debate.

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They shackle our minds as we're left on the cross. When ignornace reigns, life is lost!

Zach de la Rocha