Friday, February 24, 2006

Booby

Journalists are wringing their hands a lot these days about the Bush administration's continuing threats to prosecute and/or subpoena them for publishing classified information. Too often they wrongly link this to a false slippery slope from the Fitzgerald investigation, even though they really have nothing to do with each other. Fitzgerald made it very clear that he thought that prosecuting people under the Espionage Act for dealing in classified information was generally [word added on edit] a bad idea and he certainly never made any moves to prosecute journalists over such things.

It's Abu Gonzales and Bush who are in charge of things, and if they start hauling journalists into court over whistleblower issues then blame them, not Fitzgerald who has done no such thing.


Still, when/if the time comes it'll be incumbent on journalists figure out how to respond to such actions by the Bush administration. America's Most Famous Journalist, Bob Woodward, is in a prime position to take the lead. As a recipient of classified information from the top levels of the Bush administration he's the one who is uniquely able to get on TV and call bullshit. Will he?