Bill Keller of the NY Times puts out a memo reassuring his newsies (and the rest of us) that the Times is on top of the Judy Miller debacle.
But this bit explaining that other reporters have also been a bit coy in discussing their grand jury testimony may blow the top off of Mount Arianna:
Matt Cooper of Time wrote about his conversation with his source, Karl Rove, only after his cooperation with the special counsel was completed and the contempt citation had been vacated. Other reporters who have testified -- Walter Pincus, Glenn Kessler and, of course, Robert Novak -- have not disclosed the details of their grand jury testimony to this day.
Fine reporters all, but hello, Tim Russert? Russert's explanation of his testimony, and his "denial" that he leaked info about Ms. Plame to Libby, was an easily parsed joke (but not easy enough for Mike Isikoff!).
Now, maybe Keller is indulging a print/broadcast rivalry, but over here in reality, if Russert is a part of Libby's alibi, that is news, and the Times ought to cover it.
Adam Liptak did take a stab at this. And frankly, with a follow-up story on Russert, what does the Times have to lose? Pointing out other people's dirty laundry wouldn't make their own any cleaner, but they sure wouldn't stand out as much.
Or, Plan A, mutual backscratching and mutual disarmament.
i think we need to start a donation drive....
TM gonna have to buy some more bandwidth for all the parsing of the old against the new...and thats not even considering the TIMES "after action report'
Posted by: topsecretk9 | October 11, 2005 at 11:59 PM
oh a confused and desperate, Plan A
Posted by: topsecretk9 | October 12, 2005 at 12:01 AM