The NYT published a huge front page story about its involvement in RoveGate (the White House's intentional smearing of former ambassador Joe Wilson). But only a few others have singled out the truly remarkable comment of reporter Judith Miller in her account of talking to Vice President Dick Cheney's right hand man Scooter Libby. Miller writes that during one interview she remembers:
Mr. Libby wanted to modify our prior understanding that I would attribute information from him to a "senior administration official." When the subject turned to Mr. Wilson, Mr. Libby requested that he be identified only as a "former Hill staffer." I agreed to the new ground rules because I knew that Mr. Libby had once worked on Capitol Hill.Think about that. The White House was using patsies in the media to attack someone who spoke the truth about its "evidence" for invading Iraq (never forget that one day after Joe Wilson went public with his criticism of Bush's State of the Union address, the White House recanted). It's bad enough the MSM lets them do it anonymously. (They did so again during Hurricane Katrina, even when White House officials attacked the governor of Louisiana with lies that were demonstrably false but repeated anyway by the gullible Washington Post and Newsweek.) But now it's far, far worse.
A star reporter for the New York Times was willing to let the VP's chief of staff attack a critic of the White House, she was ready to let him do it anonymously AND SHE WAS WILLING TO DISGUISE HIS IDENTITY SO THOROUGHLY THAT NO ONE WOULD EVEN KNOW THE ATTACKS CAME FROM THE WHITE HOUSE.
So what is the NYT policy on anonymous sources? Right now, it seems to be: the Whtie House can attack people anonymously and we'll even lie about their identity so no one knows the White House is the one doing the mud-slinging.
