Censorship at the CIA: Steve Afergood. Shaun Waterman at UPI. Shane Harris at National Journal. And David Kaplan of U.S. News posted this too-little noticed story online all the way back in October. (Was that short enough a post, Atrios?)
And finally, Eric Alterman sees it all as part of a larger picture.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Exclusive Fitzgerald Interview.... (post updated twice)
Exclusive Fitzgerald Interview!... er, unfortunately not with me. And, morevoer, well, not with the New York Times or Washington Post either.
The exclusive was scored by one Joseph Santo, a senior at Regis High School, a Jesuit college-prep high school on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Via Dan Froomkin, Santo scored the exclusive interview in part because Fitzgerald is an alumni of the school. High school kid beats the national press! Timely story, too, with Rove before the grand jury today and all.
Alas, Santo, however, wasn't able to get Fitzgerald to spill the beans on the Plame probe. Not the kid's fault: Fitzgerald is inscrutable even for more experienced journalists such as--er, myself. (What is a blog for except to talk about yourself?)
And Fitzgerald shows once again he is adept--even when he speaks--at not saying much of anything at all. He told Santo: "Every day is new and every day is interesting. I love being a prosecutor; it's a great job, and it's very engaging."
Update, 4:21 P.M. Even though I myself have never scored an interview with Patrick J. Fitzgerald, I will be getting an interview with the kid (my competition) who broke the big story. Haven't talked to him yet. But the principal and president of his school said that J.R. has to do it, and having once been in high school myself (a public school, albeit not a jesuit school, but still knowing the fear of being called to the principal's office...), I know what that is like.
Some background on the school: Father Philip Judge, the President of Regis, told me (or is telling me... I am blogging as I interview him, what a medium blogging is!) that Regis is an all scholarship Catholic boys school, founded in 1914.
Father Judge actually knew Patrick Fitzgerald slightly; who was two years ahead of him in school. Fitzgerald was-- no surprise here-- on the debate team. Father Judge was on the speech team. Among other things, the school, Judge pointed out, won its 17th State Speech championish this year: "Our kids are kinda geeks," he said, "Not very good at sports, but good at things like speech and debate."
Second Update, 8:48 P.M: As it turns out, this school has graduated some very distinguished journalists, among them Pete Hamill and Mark Mazzetti, who just left the Los Angeles Times to cover intelligence for the New York Times. In addition, a recent graduate of Regis, a Harvard student, was one of the reporters for the Harvard Crimson who has broken the story of the alleged plagiarism of Harvard student novelist Kaavya Viswanathan.
All right, enough about this. Back to my own reporting. Plus if he we give this kid too much attention and positive re-inforcement for his story, he might choose journalism for a career instead of something... more admirable like say medicine or law... or for that matter just about any other profession undertaking.
Hey, Josh Gerstein [he works for the New York Sun, and has broken some very good stories on the CIA leak probe, including scooping me a couple of times] you got beat on this story dude!
The exclusive was scored by one Joseph Santo, a senior at Regis High School, a Jesuit college-prep high school on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Via Dan Froomkin, Santo scored the exclusive interview in part because Fitzgerald is an alumni of the school. High school kid beats the national press! Timely story, too, with Rove before the grand jury today and all.
Alas, Santo, however, wasn't able to get Fitzgerald to spill the beans on the Plame probe. Not the kid's fault: Fitzgerald is inscrutable even for more experienced journalists such as--er, myself. (What is a blog for except to talk about yourself?)
And Fitzgerald shows once again he is adept--even when he speaks--at not saying much of anything at all. He told Santo: "Every day is new and every day is interesting. I love being a prosecutor; it's a great job, and it's very engaging."
Update, 4:21 P.M. Even though I myself have never scored an interview with Patrick J. Fitzgerald, I will be getting an interview with the kid (my competition) who broke the big story. Haven't talked to him yet. But the principal and president of his school said that J.R. has to do it, and having once been in high school myself (a public school, albeit not a jesuit school, but still knowing the fear of being called to the principal's office...), I know what that is like.
Some background on the school: Father Philip Judge, the President of Regis, told me (or is telling me... I am blogging as I interview him, what a medium blogging is!) that Regis is an all scholarship Catholic boys school, founded in 1914.
Father Judge actually knew Patrick Fitzgerald slightly; who was two years ahead of him in school. Fitzgerald was-- no surprise here-- on the debate team. Father Judge was on the speech team. Among other things, the school, Judge pointed out, won its 17th State Speech championish this year: "Our kids are kinda geeks," he said, "Not very good at sports, but good at things like speech and debate."
Second Update, 8:48 P.M: As it turns out, this school has graduated some very distinguished journalists, among them Pete Hamill and Mark Mazzetti, who just left the Los Angeles Times to cover intelligence for the New York Times. In addition, a recent graduate of Regis, a Harvard student, was one of the reporters for the Harvard Crimson who has broken the story of the alleged plagiarism of Harvard student novelist Kaavya Viswanathan.
All right, enough about this. Back to my own reporting. Plus if he we give this kid too much attention and positive re-inforcement for his story, he might choose journalism for a career instead of something... more admirable like say medicine or law... or for that matter just about any other profession undertaking.
Hey, Josh Gerstein [he works for the New York Sun, and has broken some very good stories on the CIA leak probe, including scooping me a couple of times] you got beat on this story dude!
Rove to testify later today before the federal grand jury. It will mark his fifth appearance before two federal grand juries that have probed the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA officer.
Update, 3:51 P.M. The Times has a more detailed account of Rove's grand jury appearance, by Anne E. Kornblut.
Second Update, 10:45 P.M. Video here.
Update, 3:51 P.M. The Times has a more detailed account of Rove's grand jury appearance, by Anne E. Kornblut.
Second Update, 10:45 P.M. Video here.
Fitzgerald before the federal grand jury this morning for the second known time since last year's indictment of Scooter Libby.
Last night, I also posted a new story for my day job at the National Journal, raising questions about whether there is a double standard for investigations of leaks and other disclsoures of sensitive intelligence informaton.
Is the CIA's case against Mary O. McCarthy not as strong as they and the media first seemed to indicate? A story buried way inside the NYT on Page 17 appears to say as much:
Two quick points: If accurate, the Times account and others that have appeared since the inital stories about McCarthy suggest that there is little if any evidence that she leaked classified information to the Washington Post and other news organizations because she simply did not have access to the information. And second, despite some press accounts, that the CIA was not even making that claim in the first place. (Howie Kurtz also did an online column a couple of days ago asking whether the press rushed to judgement.)
The Times account also noted that some "media accounts have linked Ms. McCarthy's firing" to the Post's story on the covert prisons. I wish the Times named them, but in the absence of that being the case, I hope that some media critic or blogger would do so. (As an incentive to anyone contemplating writing such a post or column, this blog will link to you-- and perhaps more than one of my five to seven readers, er, unique visitors will read your site
Another point... (what is a blog for except to go on and on, after all?) my National Journal story discloses that Mary McCarthy was often authorized and designated to speak to the media. That does not mean that she also had unauthorized contacts or perhaps leaked classified information, but there might have been a context to her inadvertently gong too far in conversations with press contacts encouraged by her bosses.
Finally, of course, there is the hypocrisy factor.
And this! This blog gets some attention!
Last night, I also posted a new story for my day job at the National Journal, raising questions about whether there is a double standard for investigations of leaks and other disclsoures of sensitive intelligence informaton.
Is the CIA's case against Mary O. McCarthy not as strong as they and the media first seemed to indicate? A story buried way inside the NYT on Page 17 appears to say as much:
The Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday defended the firing of Mary O. McCarthy, the veteran officer who was dismissed last week, and challenged her lawyer's own statements that Ms. McCarthy never provided information to the news media.Read the rest of the Times story here.
But intelligence officials would not say whether they believed that Ms. McCarthy had been a source for a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles in the Washington Post about secret C.I.A. detention centers abroad. Media accounts have linked Ms. McCarthy's firing to the articles, but the C.I.A. has never explicitly drawn such a connection.
In response to questions Tuesday, the intelligence officials declined to say whether discussion of the prisons has been part of what they described as a a pattern of unauthorized contacts between Ms. McCarthy and reporters.
One intelligence officials, who was granted anonymity to speak more candidly about the sensitive issue, said it was unclear how much access Ms. McCarthy, who was assigned to the agency's inspector general's office, had to specific details about the secret prison.
Two quick points: If accurate, the Times account and others that have appeared since the inital stories about McCarthy suggest that there is little if any evidence that she leaked classified information to the Washington Post and other news organizations because she simply did not have access to the information. And second, despite some press accounts, that the CIA was not even making that claim in the first place. (Howie Kurtz also did an online column a couple of days ago asking whether the press rushed to judgement.)
The Times account also noted that some "media accounts have linked Ms. McCarthy's firing" to the Post's story on the covert prisons. I wish the Times named them, but in the absence of that being the case, I hope that some media critic or blogger would do so. (As an incentive to anyone contemplating writing such a post or column, this blog will link to you-- and perhaps more than one of my five to seven readers, er, unique visitors will read your site
Another point... (what is a blog for except to go on and on, after all?) my National Journal story discloses that Mary McCarthy was often authorized and designated to speak to the media. That does not mean that she also had unauthorized contacts or perhaps leaked classified information, but there might have been a context to her inadvertently gong too far in conversations with press contacts encouraged by her bosses.
Finally, of course, there is the hypocrisy factor.
And this! This blog gets some attention!
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Did the Bush administration “authorize” the leak of classified information to Bob Woodward? And did those leaks damage national security?
The vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) made exactly that charge tonight in a letter to John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. What prompted Rockefeller to write Negroponte was a recent op-ed in the New York Times by CIA director Porter Goss complaining that leaks of classified information were the fault of “misguided whistleblowers.”
Rockefeller charged in his letter that the most “damaging revelations of intelligence sources and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of intelligence agencies.”
Later in the same letter, Rockefeller said: “Given the Administration’s continuing abuse of intelligence information for political purposes, its criticism of leaks is extraordinarily hypocritical. Preventing damage to intelligence sources and methods from media leaks will not be possible until the highest level of the Administration cease to disclose classified information on a selective basis for political purposes.”
Exhibit A for Rockefeller: Woodward’s book “Bush at War".
Here is what Rockefeller had to say:
Were leaks of classified information “authorized” to Woodward? Rockefeller's letter says exactly that. And among other things, it is well known and has been reported long ago that one of Woodward’s sources for both of his books about the Bush presidency was then-VicePresidential chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, who is portrayed in quite a flattering manner in both.
Rockefeller also said alleged in his letter that the President’s directing of administration officials to co-operate with the administration-friendly Woodward was only one example of such “authorized leaks”.
Rockefeller said elsewhere in his letter:
The White House is declining tonight to comment on Rockefeller's letter, as is Woodward. (If either of them does at some point have something to say, either to me, or elsewhere, I will update this post accordingly.)
Did the leaks to Woodward damage national security? Michael Scheuer, the CIA’s former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit, wrote in his book Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror:
“After reading Mr. Woodward’s Bush at War, it seems to me that the U.S. officials who either approved or participated in passing the information—in documents and via interviews—that is the heart of Mr. Woodward’s book gave an untold measure of aid and comfort to the enemy.”
What was not known by Scheuer at the time was that officials on the “seventh floor” of the CIA were literally ordered by then-CIA director George Tenet to co-operate with Woodward’s project because President Bush personally asked that it be done. More than one CIA official co-operated with Woodward against their best judgment, and only because they thought it was something the President had wanted done or ordered.
One former senior administration official explained to me: “This was something that the White House wanted done because they considered it good public relations. If there was real damage to national security—if there were leaks that possibly exposed sources and methods, it was not done in this instance for the public good or to expose Watergate type wrongdoing. This was done for presidential image-making and a commercial enterprise—Woodward’s book.”
Woodward himself perhaps lends credence to that possibility.
On page 243 of his book “Plan of Attack”, Woodward wrote:
[O]n December 18, my wife, Elsa Walsh, and I attended a huge White House Christmas party for the media hosted by the president and his wife. The Bushes stood for hours in a receiving line as a photographer snapped pictures with the first couple.
When we reached the front of the line, the president remarked that my book Bush at War was selling well. “Top of the charts,” he said, and asked, “Are you planning to do another book?” He then stretched out his arms and indicated with his body language that there might be a story there, that it should be done.
Without any irony, Woodward didn’t seem to understand how far he had come from meeting Mark Felt in the dead of night in a parking garage. (For a blogger who does not link much, or like to, in that great blogger tradition, I highly recommend that last link.)
Did Woodward disappoint Bush with his next book? This blog likes to speak no opinions. Our saying is: We blog, you decide.
One can skip a read of the book, and go simply to the index, in making their own judgments:
Here are some entries:
Bush, George W.: absence of doubt in, 139-40, 420
Bipartisan solidarity of, 189, 200.
Importance of showing resolve and, 81, 116, 152, 320-21, 406, 418-19, 437
legacy of, 90, 165
morality of, 86-132, 272, 313-14
on freedom, 88-89, 93, 152, 258, 276, 405, 424, 428
optimism of, 91, 93, 313-14
patience of, 162-63, 165, 271
as a strong leader, 91, 430
The vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) made exactly that charge tonight in a letter to John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence. What prompted Rockefeller to write Negroponte was a recent op-ed in the New York Times by CIA director Porter Goss complaining that leaks of classified information were the fault of “misguided whistleblowers.”
Rockefeller charged in his letter that the most “damaging revelations of intelligence sources and methods are generated primarily by Executive Branch officials pushing a particular policy, and not by the rank-and-file employees of intelligence agencies.”
Later in the same letter, Rockefeller said: “Given the Administration’s continuing abuse of intelligence information for political purposes, its criticism of leaks is extraordinarily hypocritical. Preventing damage to intelligence sources and methods from media leaks will not be possible until the highest level of the Administration cease to disclose classified information on a selective basis for political purposes.”
Exhibit A for Rockefeller: Woodward’s book “Bush at War".
Here is what Rockefeller had to say:
In his 2002 book Bush at War, Bob Woodward described almost unfettered access to classified material of the most sensitive nature. According to his account, he was provided information related to sources and methods, extremely sensitive covert actions, and foreign intelligence liaison relationships. If it no wonder, as Director Goss wrote, “because of the number of recent news reports discussing our relationships with other intelligence services, some of these partners have even informed the C.I.A. that they are reconsidering their participation of some of our most important antiterrorism ventures.”
I wrote both former Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet and Acting DCI John McLaughlin seeking to determine what steps were being taken to address the appalling disclosures contained in Bush at War. The only response I received was to indicate that the leaks had been authorized by the Administration. The CIA has still not responded to a follow-up letter I sent a year and half ago on September 1, 2004, trying to pin down which officials were authorized to meet with Mr. Woodward and by whom, and what intelligence information was conveyed during these authorized exchanges.
Were leaks of classified information “authorized” to Woodward? Rockefeller's letter says exactly that. And among other things, it is well known and has been reported long ago that one of Woodward’s sources for both of his books about the Bush presidency was then-VicePresidential chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, who is portrayed in quite a flattering manner in both.
Rockefeller also said alleged in his letter that the President’s directing of administration officials to co-operate with the administration-friendly Woodward was only one example of such “authorized leaks”.
Rockefeller said elsewhere in his letter:
On February 9th, the National Journal reported that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby told a grand jury that he was `authorized’ by Vice President Cheney and other White House superiors to disclose classified information from a National Intelligence Estimate to the press to defend the Administration’s use of pre-war intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq...
This blatant abuse of intelligence information for political purposes is inexcusable, but all to common. Throughout this period leading up to the Iraq war the Administration selectively declassified or leaked information related to Iraq’s acquisition of aluminum tubes, the alleged purchase of uranium, the non-existent operational connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and numerous other issues.”
The White House is declining tonight to comment on Rockefeller's letter, as is Woodward. (If either of them does at some point have something to say, either to me, or elsewhere, I will update this post accordingly.)
Did the leaks to Woodward damage national security? Michael Scheuer, the CIA’s former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit, wrote in his book Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror:
“After reading Mr. Woodward’s Bush at War, it seems to me that the U.S. officials who either approved or participated in passing the information—in documents and via interviews—that is the heart of Mr. Woodward’s book gave an untold measure of aid and comfort to the enemy.”
What was not known by Scheuer at the time was that officials on the “seventh floor” of the CIA were literally ordered by then-CIA director George Tenet to co-operate with Woodward’s project because President Bush personally asked that it be done. More than one CIA official co-operated with Woodward against their best judgment, and only because they thought it was something the President had wanted done or ordered.
One former senior administration official explained to me: “This was something that the White House wanted done because they considered it good public relations. If there was real damage to national security—if there were leaks that possibly exposed sources and methods, it was not done in this instance for the public good or to expose Watergate type wrongdoing. This was done for presidential image-making and a commercial enterprise—Woodward’s book.”
Woodward himself perhaps lends credence to that possibility.
On page 243 of his book “Plan of Attack”, Woodward wrote:
[O]n December 18, my wife, Elsa Walsh, and I attended a huge White House Christmas party for the media hosted by the president and his wife. The Bushes stood for hours in a receiving line as a photographer snapped pictures with the first couple.
When we reached the front of the line, the president remarked that my book Bush at War was selling well. “Top of the charts,” he said, and asked, “Are you planning to do another book?” He then stretched out his arms and indicated with his body language that there might be a story there, that it should be done.
Without any irony, Woodward didn’t seem to understand how far he had come from meeting Mark Felt in the dead of night in a parking garage. (For a blogger who does not link much, or like to, in that great blogger tradition, I highly recommend that last link.)
Did Woodward disappoint Bush with his next book? This blog likes to speak no opinions. Our saying is: We blog, you decide.
One can skip a read of the book, and go simply to the index, in making their own judgments:
Here are some entries:
Bush, George W.: absence of doubt in, 139-40, 420
Bipartisan solidarity of, 189, 200.
Importance of showing resolve and, 81, 116, 152, 320-21, 406, 418-19, 437
legacy of, 90, 165
morality of, 86-132, 272, 313-14
on freedom, 88-89, 93, 152, 258, 276, 405, 424, 428
optimism of, 91, 93, 313-14
patience of, 162-63, 165, 271
as a strong leader, 91, 430
Friday, February 03, 2006
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has indicated in correspondence unsealed in federal court in recent days that President Bush might have been briefed regarding former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s February 2002 CIA-sponsored mission to Niger during regular morning intelligence briefing.
The information provided to Bush occurred in the form of one of the “President’s Daily Briefs,” a typically 30-to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. They are a compiliation of that day's most closely held and highly classified intelligence-- and written specifically for the "First Customer", meaning the President of the United States. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services.
The information about Bush having been briefed about Wilson’s mission to Niger is contained in court papers filed in federal court. Attorneys for I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, President Bush’s former chief of staff and national security advisors, were seeking information about presidential PDBs from the special prosecutor, as part of a discovery effort to defend their client.
Libby was forced to resign his White House positions last Oct. 28, after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice, for outing Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA officer. The indictment alleged that Libby provided information to a reporter about Plame’s CIA employment because in an effort to retaliate against her husband for criticizing the Bush administration’s use of intelligence during the run up to war in Iraq.
Libby appeared this morning in federal court, during which the trial judge, Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton, set a trial date for Jan.8, 2007. Walton wanted to try the case this next September—which could have had political consequences had Libby been tried so close to the 2006 mid-term congressional elections. But one of Libby’s attorneys, Theodore Wells, says that he was going to be tied up with another case.
In court papers made public late last week, Fitzgerald revealed that there was information regarding Wilson’s mission to Niger contained in at least one PDB, or possibly more, although the special prosecutor provided no specifics of the specific intelligence information that was contained in the ordinarily highly classified briefing materials.
In a letter that Fitzgerald sent Libby’s attorneys on January 9, 2006, and filed in federal court late last week, Fitzgerald wrote: “As you are well aware, the documents referred to as Presidential Daily Briefs (“PDBs”) are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified. We have never requested copies of any PDBs. However, we did ask for relevant documents relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife; Valerie Plame Wilson... and the trip undertaken by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002... from the Executive Branch of the President and the Office of the Vice President.
“We also sought from the Central Intelligence Agency documents relating to the same item.... relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was not requested to produce documents in the files regarding Valerie Plame and Wilson that were not related directly or indirectly to Ambassador Wilson’s travel to Niger in February 2002.
“In response to our requests, we have received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs. We have provided to Mr. Libby and his counsel (or are in the process of providing such documents consistent with the process of a declassification review) copies of any pages in our possession reflecting discussions with Joseph Wilson, Valerie Wilson and/or Wilson’s trip to Niger contained in (or written on) copies of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) in the redacted form in which we received them.”
An attorney representing Libby did not return a phone call from reporters seeking comment regarding their discovery request. A White House spokesperson said they would have no comment because Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation is still an ongoing matter.
Although Fitzgerald did not provide any information as to what President Bush might have been told during his morning intelligence briefing about Wilson’s Niger mission, what is told the President is often similar or parallel to what is provided to Vice President Cheney during his own intelligence briefings. Information contained in PDBs also areoften times similar to that in a highly classified intelligence report known as a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief, or SEIB. Those reports are provided to the Vice President, National Security Council, cabinet Secretaries, and other senior national advisers to the President.
On October 18, 2001, only five weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the CIA circulated a particularly alarming intelligence SEIB raising the specter that Iraq was attempting to covertly uranium from the African nation of Niger to build an atomic weapon.
“According to a foreign government service,” said the report, “Niger as of early this year planned to send several tones of uranium to Iraq under an agreement concluded late this year. Iraq and Niger have been negotiating the shipment since at least 1999, but the state court of Niger only this year approved of it, according to the service."
The report also included this particularly chilling prospect: “The quality of yellowcake to be transferred could support the enrichment of enough uranium for at least one nuclear weapon.”
It is doubtful that this was the information that was told to the President during his morning briefing, however, because Wilson had not yet ventured to Niger on behalf of the CIA.
A much more likely possibility is that Bush, like Vice President Cheney, was told in late June, 2003, that the CIA no longer considered “credible” allegations that Saddam Hussein had attempted to have ever procured uranium from Niger or any other African nation in an attempt to build a nuclear weapon.
As my National Journal story first disclosed yesterday, then-CIA director George Tenet received a highly classified memo on June 17, 2003, on the Niger matter from his analysts warning that allegations that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation were to no longer to be believed.
In the memo, the CIA analysts wrote: "Since learning that the Iraqi-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq purchased uranium from abroad."
The memo also related that there had been other, earlier claims that Saddam's regime had attempted to purchase uranium from private interests in Somalia and Benin; these claims predated the Niger allegations. It was that past intelligence that had led CIA analysts, in part, to consider the Niger claims as plausible. But the memo said that after a thorough review of those earlier reports, the CIA had concluded that they were no longer credible. Indeed, the previous intelligence reports citing those claims had long since been "recalled" -- meaning that the CIA had formally repudiated them.
Within days after Tenet received the memo, the CIA provided the information contained in it to both Cheney and Libby in briefings on the matter. The congressional Senate and House Intelligence Committees received similar briefings on June 18 and June 19, 2003, according to government records.
Two senior government officials suggested that it was likely that Bush would have also been similarly briefed, because Cheney, Libby, Tenet, and the Senate and House Senate committees had been at the time, and also because the issue of Wilson’s trip to Niger was being discussed in the media and Capitol Hill. Said one official: “It would have just made sense, that this was have recycled to the President too... There is a lot of similarity as to what the President and Vice President are briefed about.”
Despite having been briefed on the CIA’s findings, Cheney continued to defend the Niger allegations as possibly still credible. Appearing on Meet the Press on Sept. 14, 2003, at least two and half months after having been told of the CIA’s new conclusions, Cheney said: “[O]n the whole thing, the question of whether or not the Iraqis were trying to acquire uranium in Africa—In the British report, this week, the Committee of the British Parliament, which just spent 90 days investigating all of this, revalidated their claim that Saddam was, in fact, trying to acquire uranium in Africa. What was in the State of the Union speech and what was in the original British White papers. So there may be difference of opinion there. I don’t know what the truth is on the ground with respect to that.”
Meanwhile, Dan Froomkin this afternoon has more on everything Plame and Libby.
The information provided to Bush occurred in the form of one of the “President’s Daily Briefs,” a typically 30-to 45-minute early-morning national security briefing. They are a compiliation of that day's most closely held and highly classified intelligence-- and written specifically for the "First Customer", meaning the President of the United States. Information for PDBs has routinely been derived from electronic intercepts, human agents, and reports from foreign intelligence services.
The information about Bush having been briefed about Wilson’s mission to Niger is contained in court papers filed in federal court. Attorneys for I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, President Bush’s former chief of staff and national security advisors, were seeking information about presidential PDBs from the special prosecutor, as part of a discovery effort to defend their client.
Libby was forced to resign his White House positions last Oct. 28, after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on five counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice, for outing Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA officer. The indictment alleged that Libby provided information to a reporter about Plame’s CIA employment because in an effort to retaliate against her husband for criticizing the Bush administration’s use of intelligence during the run up to war in Iraq.
Libby appeared this morning in federal court, during which the trial judge, Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton, set a trial date for Jan.8, 2007. Walton wanted to try the case this next September—which could have had political consequences had Libby been tried so close to the 2006 mid-term congressional elections. But one of Libby’s attorneys, Theodore Wells, says that he was going to be tied up with another case.
In court papers made public late last week, Fitzgerald revealed that there was information regarding Wilson’s mission to Niger contained in at least one PDB, or possibly more, although the special prosecutor provided no specifics of the specific intelligence information that was contained in the ordinarily highly classified briefing materials.
In a letter that Fitzgerald sent Libby’s attorneys on January 9, 2006, and filed in federal court late last week, Fitzgerald wrote: “As you are well aware, the documents referred to as Presidential Daily Briefs (“PDBs”) are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified. We have never requested copies of any PDBs. However, we did ask for relevant documents relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife; Valerie Plame Wilson... and the trip undertaken by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002... from the Executive Branch of the President and the Office of the Vice President.
“We also sought from the Central Intelligence Agency documents relating to the same item.... relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was not requested to produce documents in the files regarding Valerie Plame and Wilson that were not related directly or indirectly to Ambassador Wilson’s travel to Niger in February 2002.
“In response to our requests, we have received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs. We have provided to Mr. Libby and his counsel (or are in the process of providing such documents consistent with the process of a declassification review) copies of any pages in our possession reflecting discussions with Joseph Wilson, Valerie Wilson and/or Wilson’s trip to Niger contained in (or written on) copies of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) in the redacted form in which we received them.”
An attorney representing Libby did not return a phone call from reporters seeking comment regarding their discovery request. A White House spokesperson said they would have no comment because Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation is still an ongoing matter.
Although Fitzgerald did not provide any information as to what President Bush might have been told during his morning intelligence briefing about Wilson’s Niger mission, what is told the President is often similar or parallel to what is provided to Vice President Cheney during his own intelligence briefings. Information contained in PDBs also areoften times similar to that in a highly classified intelligence report known as a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief, or SEIB. Those reports are provided to the Vice President, National Security Council, cabinet Secretaries, and other senior national advisers to the President.
On October 18, 2001, only five weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the CIA circulated a particularly alarming intelligence SEIB raising the specter that Iraq was attempting to covertly uranium from the African nation of Niger to build an atomic weapon.
“According to a foreign government service,” said the report, “Niger as of early this year planned to send several tones of uranium to Iraq under an agreement concluded late this year. Iraq and Niger have been negotiating the shipment since at least 1999, but the state court of Niger only this year approved of it, according to the service."
The report also included this particularly chilling prospect: “The quality of yellowcake to be transferred could support the enrichment of enough uranium for at least one nuclear weapon.”
It is doubtful that this was the information that was told to the President during his morning briefing, however, because Wilson had not yet ventured to Niger on behalf of the CIA.
A much more likely possibility is that Bush, like Vice President Cheney, was told in late June, 2003, that the CIA no longer considered “credible” allegations that Saddam Hussein had attempted to have ever procured uranium from Niger or any other African nation in an attempt to build a nuclear weapon.
As my National Journal story first disclosed yesterday, then-CIA director George Tenet received a highly classified memo on June 17, 2003, on the Niger matter from his analysts warning that allegations that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation were to no longer to be believed.
In the memo, the CIA analysts wrote: "Since learning that the Iraqi-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq purchased uranium from abroad."
The memo also related that there had been other, earlier claims that Saddam's regime had attempted to purchase uranium from private interests in Somalia and Benin; these claims predated the Niger allegations. It was that past intelligence that had led CIA analysts, in part, to consider the Niger claims as plausible. But the memo said that after a thorough review of those earlier reports, the CIA had concluded that they were no longer credible. Indeed, the previous intelligence reports citing those claims had long since been "recalled" -- meaning that the CIA had formally repudiated them.
Within days after Tenet received the memo, the CIA provided the information contained in it to both Cheney and Libby in briefings on the matter. The congressional Senate and House Intelligence Committees received similar briefings on June 18 and June 19, 2003, according to government records.
Two senior government officials suggested that it was likely that Bush would have also been similarly briefed, because Cheney, Libby, Tenet, and the Senate and House Senate committees had been at the time, and also because the issue of Wilson’s trip to Niger was being discussed in the media and Capitol Hill. Said one official: “It would have just made sense, that this was have recycled to the President too... There is a lot of similarity as to what the President and Vice President are briefed about.”
Despite having been briefed on the CIA’s findings, Cheney continued to defend the Niger allegations as possibly still credible. Appearing on Meet the Press on Sept. 14, 2003, at least two and half months after having been told of the CIA’s new conclusions, Cheney said: “[O]n the whole thing, the question of whether or not the Iraqis were trying to acquire uranium in Africa—In the British report, this week, the Committee of the British Parliament, which just spent 90 days investigating all of this, revalidated their claim that Saddam was, in fact, trying to acquire uranium in Africa. What was in the State of the Union speech and what was in the original British White papers. So there may be difference of opinion there. I don’t know what the truth is on the ground with respect to that.”
Meanwhile, Dan Froomkin this afternoon has more on everything Plame and Libby.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Exclusive: Did Bush Receive a PDB regarding Joe Wilson?
Did President Bush personally receive information during his morning intelligence briefings about Joe Wilson's mission to Niger? Court filings in the CIA leak case appear to indicate that that may well might have been the case.
Information to be reviewed during the President's morning briefings are written up in what is known as Presidential Daily Briefs, or PDBs. Attorneys for I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, are demanding copies of any PDBs that CIA leak special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald might have obtained during the course of his investigation.
In a January 9, 2006 response to the discovery demand, Fitzgerald wrote back:
“As you no doubt well aware, the documents referred to as Presidential Daily Briefs (“PDBs”) are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified. We have never requested copies of any PDBs. However, we did ask for relevant documents relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife; Valerie Plame Wilson... and the trip undertaken by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002 (even if the items/documents themselves did not refer to Wilson by name) from the Executive Branch of the President and the Office of the Vice President.
“We also sought from the Central Intelligence Agency documents relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was no requested to produce documents relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was not requested to produce documents in its files regarding Valerie Plame Wilson that were not related directly or indirectly to Ambassador Wilson’s travel to Niger in February 2002.
“In response to our requests, we have received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs. We have provided to Mr. Libby and his counsel (or are in the process of providing such documents consistent with the process of a declassification review) copies of any pages in our possession reflecting discussions of Joseph Wilson, Valerie Wilson and/or Wilson’s trip to Niger contained in (or written on) copies of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) in the redacted form in which we received them.”
One can click here to read a full set of the correspondence, which has been posted online, courstesy of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy.
Expect the issue of the PDBs to be a point of contention this morning during Libby's appearance in federal court today regarding discovery issues between the prosecuction and defense.
Information to be reviewed during the President's morning briefings are written up in what is known as Presidential Daily Briefs, or PDBs. Attorneys for I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, are demanding copies of any PDBs that CIA leak special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald might have obtained during the course of his investigation.
In a January 9, 2006 response to the discovery demand, Fitzgerald wrote back:
“As you no doubt well aware, the documents referred to as Presidential Daily Briefs (“PDBs”) are extraordinarily sensitive documents which are usually highly classified. We have never requested copies of any PDBs. However, we did ask for relevant documents relating to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife; Valerie Plame Wilson... and the trip undertaken by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002 (even if the items/documents themselves did not refer to Wilson by name) from the Executive Branch of the President and the Office of the Vice President.
“We also sought from the Central Intelligence Agency documents relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was no requested to produce documents relating to the same items, with the exception that the CIA was not requested to produce documents in its files regarding Valerie Plame Wilson that were not related directly or indirectly to Ambassador Wilson’s travel to Niger in February 2002.
“In response to our requests, we have received a very discrete amount of material relating to PDBs. We have provided to Mr. Libby and his counsel (or are in the process of providing such documents consistent with the process of a declassification review) copies of any pages in our possession reflecting discussions of Joseph Wilson, Valerie Wilson and/or Wilson’s trip to Niger contained in (or written on) copies of the President’s Daily Brief (PDB) in the redacted form in which we received them.”
One can click here to read a full set of the correspondence, which has been posted online, courstesy of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy.
Expect the issue of the PDBs to be a point of contention this morning during Libby's appearance in federal court today regarding discovery issues between the prosecuction and defense.
I have a new story in the National Journal tomorrow morning, which was also posted online late this afternoon.
Here is my lede:
To read the entire article, click here.
What is the significance of the previously unreported CIA assessment? First, virtually the entirety of the effort to discredit Wilson—which resulted in the outing of his wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA officer, occurred after Cheney and Libby were briefed that Wilson was essentially correct, and that there was nothing to the Niger allegations.
Second, the new disclousre is also likely to have an impact on Libby’s faulty memory defense during his trial. As this excerpt from my story explains:
And thirdly, the new information is perhaps most important in comparing statements by Cheney and other administration officials said publicly about Niger and other Bush administration officials regarding prewar intelligence with what they were being told in private by the CIA.
Judd Legum at Think Progress had this post last night, referencing Cheney's statements regarding Niger on Meet the Press on Sept. 14, 2003-- almost three months after he was apprised of the CIA's findings. At this blog, our motto is you click, you decide!
Here is an even longer excerpt of what Cheney said on Meet the Press:
“[O]n the whole thing, the question of whether or not the Iraqis were trying to acquire uranium in Africa—In the British report, this week, the Committee of the British Parliament, which just spent 90 days investigating all of this, revalidated their claim that Saddam was, in fact, trying to acquire uranium in Africa. What was in the State of the Union speech and what was in the original British White papers. So there may be difference of opinion there. I don’t know what the truth is on the ground with respect to that” [emphasis added.]"
Finally, regarding those lost email records, I recommend this post by Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy.
Here is my lede:
Vice President Cheney and his then-Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were personally informed in June 2003 that the CIA no longer considered credible the allegations that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger, according to government records and interviews with current and former officials.The new CIA assessment came just as Libby and other senior administration officials were embarking on an effort to discredit an administration critic who had also been saying that the allegations were untrue.
CIA analysts wrote then-CIA Director George Tenet in a highly classified memo on June 17, 2003, “We no longer believe there is sufficient” credible information to “conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad.“...
Despite the CIA’s findings, Libby attempted to discredit former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been sent on a CIA-sponsored mission to Niger the previous year to investigate the claims, which he concluded were baseless...
To read the entire article, click here.
What is the significance of the previously unreported CIA assessment? First, virtually the entirety of the effort to discredit Wilson—which resulted in the outing of his wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA officer, occurred after Cheney and Libby were briefed that Wilson was essentially correct, and that there was nothing to the Niger allegations.
Second, the new disclousre is also likely to have an impact on Libby’s faulty memory defense during his trial. As this excerpt from my story explains:
Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University, said, "The prosecutor's implicit inference before the jury may well likely be that Libby lied to protect the vice president. Even in a plain vanilla case, a prosecutor always wants to be able to demonstrate a motive."
That Cheney was one of the first people to tell Libby about Plame, and that Libby had written in his notes that Cheney had heard the information from the CIA director, Gillers said, might make it more difficult for Libby to mount a credible defense of a faulty memory. "From a prosecutor's point of view, and perhaps a jury's as well, the conversation [during which Libby learned about Plame] is the more dramatic and the more memorable because the conversation was with the vice president" and because the CIA director's name also came up, Gillers said.
The disclosure that Cheney and Libby were told of a CIA assessment that the agency considered the Niger allegations to be untrue, and that Tenet requested the assessment as a result of the personal interest of Cheney and Libby, would "demonstrate even further that Niger was a central issue for Libby," said Gillers, and would "make it even harder, although not impossible, to claim a faulty memory."
And thirdly, the new information is perhaps most important in comparing statements by Cheney and other administration officials said publicly about Niger and other Bush administration officials regarding prewar intelligence with what they were being told in private by the CIA.
Judd Legum at Think Progress had this post last night, referencing Cheney's statements regarding Niger on Meet the Press on Sept. 14, 2003-- almost three months after he was apprised of the CIA's findings. At this blog, our motto is you click, you decide!
Here is an even longer excerpt of what Cheney said on Meet the Press:
“[O]n the whole thing, the question of whether or not the Iraqis were trying to acquire uranium in Africa—In the British report, this week, the Committee of the British Parliament, which just spent 90 days investigating all of this, revalidated their claim that Saddam was, in fact, trying to acquire uranium in Africa. What was in the State of the Union speech and what was in the original British White papers. So there may be difference of opinion there. I don’t know what the truth is on the ground with respect to that” [emphasis added.]"
Finally, regarding those lost email records, I recommend this post by Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Because I know that maybe more than one of the five to seven regular readers of this blog cannot afford TimesSelect, or haven't read this morning's New York Times, I reprint below in its entirety Ted Koppel's first New York Times column, as yet another act of civil disobedience, to bring crucial information to the masses. I don't know if one does hard time for violating the copyright act (one can ask such plagiarists as Ruth Shalit, Joe Conason, or Doris Kearns Goodwin about that) but I want everyone to know that I could do the 85 days in jail that Judy Miller did standing on my head!
Probably the worst that would happen to me is that I would be ordered to take some remedial courses at night with a bunch of fiteeen year old girls who were caught illegally downloading Napster. And then, a la James Frey, I can tell all my friends that I did 85 days of hard time, and was visited by John Bolton everyday-- and then sell the book rights to Nan "The Essential Truth" Talese.
(No emails: I know that the Napster cultural reference is woefully out of date, that Napster is now a legitimate business, in partnership with the record industry... and that some other renegade service has replaced Napster or what-not... but I never claimed that this blog was written by some type of hipster or anything. This blog is very uncool.)
I am going to blog some comments about this column later.... In the meantime, I recommend you read what Timothy Karr has to say.
Ted Koppel: And Now, a Word for Our Demographic
Special to the New York Times and (also) Whatever Already!
NOT all reporters have an unfinished novel gathering dust but many, including this one, do. If that isn't enough of a cliche, this novel's hero is a television anchor (always plant your pen in familiar turf) who, in the course of a minor traffic accident, bites the tip off his tongue. The ensuing speech impediment is sufficient to end his on-air career and he finds himself, recently divorced, now unemployed, at home and watching altogether too much television.
After several weeks of isolation he discovers on his voice mail a message from an old friend, the opinion-page editor of his hometown newspaper. She is urging him to write a piece about television news, which, after some hesitation, he does -- with a vengeance:
The earls and dukes and barons of television news have grown sleek and fat eating road kill. The victims, dispatched by political or special interest hit-and-run squads, are then hung up, displayed and consumed with unwholesome relish on television.
They wander the battlefields of other people's wars, these knights of the airwaves, disposing of the wounded from both armies, gorging themselves like the electronic vultures they are.
The popular illusion that television journalists are liberals does them too much honor. Like all mercenaries they fight for money, not ideology; but unlike true mercenaries, their loyalty is not for sale. It cannot be engaged because it does not exist. Their total lack of commitment to any cause has come to be defined as objectivity. Their daily preoccupation with the trivial and the banal has accumulated large audiences, which, in turn, has encouraged a descent into the search for items of even greater banality.
A wounded and bitter fellow, this fictional hero of mine, but his bilious arguments hardly seem all that dated. Now here I sit, having recently left ABC News after 42 years, and who should call but an editor friend of mine who, in a quirky convolution of real life's imitating unpublished fiction, has asked me to write this column examining the state of television news today.
Where to begin? Confession of the obvious seems like a reasonable starting point: I have become well known and well-off traveling the world on ABC's dime, charged only with ensuring that our viewers be well informed about important issues. For the better part of those 42 years, this arrangement worked to our mutual benefit and satisfaction. At the same time, I cannot help but see that the industry in which I have spent my entire adult life is in decline and in distress.
Once, 30 or 40 years ago, the target audience for network news was made up of everyone with a television, and the most common criticism lodged against us was that we were tempted to operate on a lowest-common-denominator basis.
This, however, was in the days before deregulation, when the Federal Communications Commission was still perceived to have teeth, and its mandate that broadcasters operate in ''the public interest, convenience and necessity'' was enough to give each licensee pause.
Network owners nurtured their news divisions, encouraged them to tackle serious issues, cultivated them as shields to be brandished before Congressional committees whenever questions were raised about the quality of entertainment programs and the vast sums earned by those programs. News divisions occasionally came under political pressures but rarely commercial ones. The expectation was that they would search out issues of importance, sift out the trivial and then tell the public what it needed to know.
With the advent of cable, satellite and broadband technology, today's marketplace has become so overcrowded that network news divisions are increasingly vulnerable to the dictatorship of the demographic. Now, every division of every network is expected to make a profit. And so we have entered the age of boutique journalism. The goal for the traditional broadcast networks now is to identify those segments of the audience considered most desirable by the advertising community and then to cater to them.
Most television news programs are therefore designed to satisfy the perceived appetites of our audiences. That may be not only acceptable but unavoidable in entertainment; in news, however, it is the journalists who should be telling their viewers what is important, not the other way around.
Indeed, in television news these days, the programs are being shaped to attract, most particularly, 18-to-34-year-old viewers. They, in turn, are presumed to be partly brain-dead -- though not so insensible as to be unmoved by the blandishments of sponsors.
Exceptions, it should be noted, remain. Thus it is that the evening news broadcasts of ABC, CBS and NBC are liberally studded with advertisements that clearly cater to older Americans. But this is a holdover from another era: the last gathering of more than 30 million tribal elders, as they clench their dentures while struggling to control esophageal eruptions of stomach acid to watch ''The News.'' That number still commands respect, but even the evening news programs, you will find (after the first block of headline material), are struggling to find a new format that will somehow appeal to younger viewers.
Washington news, for example, is covered with less and less enthusiasm and aggressiveness. The networks' foreign bureaus have, for some years now, been seen as too expensive to merit survival. Judged on the frequency with which their reports get airtime, they can no longer be deemed cost-effective. Most have either been closed or reduced in size to the point of irrelevance.
Simply stated, no audience is perceived to be clamoring for foreign news, the exceptions being wars in their early months that involve American troops, acts of terrorism and, for a couple of weeks or so, natural disasters of truly epic proportions.
You will still see foreign stories on the evening news broadcasts, but examine them carefully.
They are either reported by one of a half-dozen or so remaining foreign correspondents who now cover the world for each network, or the anchor simply narrates a piece of videotape shot by some other news agency. For big events, an anchor might parachute in for a couple of days of high drama coverage. But the age of the foreign correspondent, who knew a country or region intimately, is long over.
No television news executive is likely to acknowledge indifference to major events overseas or in our nation's capital, but he may, on occasion, concede that the viewers don't care, and therein lies the essential malignancy.
The accusation that television news has a political agenda misses the point. Right now, the main agenda is to give people what they want. It is not partisanship but profitability that shapes what you see.
Most particularly on cable news, a calculated subjectivity has, indeed, displaced the old-fashioned goal of conveying the news dispassionately. But that, too, has less to do with partisan politics than simple capitalism. Thus, one cable network experiments with the subjectivity of tender engagement: ''I care and therefore you should care.'' Another opts for chest-thumping certitude: ''I know and therefore you should care.''
Even Fox News's product has less to do with ideology and more to do with changing business models. Fox has succeeded financially because it tapped into a deep, rich vein of unfulfilled yearning among conservative American television viewers, but it created programming to satisfy the market, not the other way around. CNN, meanwhile, finds itself largely outmaneuvered, unwilling to accept the label of liberal alternative, experimenting instead with a form of journalism that stresses empathy over detachment.
Now, television news should not become a sort of intellectual broccoli to be jammed down our viewers' unwilling throats. We are obliged to make our offerings as palatable as possible. But there are too many important things happening in the world today to allow the diet to be determined to such a degree by the popular tastes of a relatively narrow and apparently uninterested demographic.
What is, ultimately, most confusing about the behavior of the big three networks is why they ever allowed themselves to be drawn onto a battlefield that so favors their cable competitors. At almost any time, the audience of a single network news program on just one broadcast network is greater than the combined audiences of CNN, Fox and MSNBC.
Reaching across the entire spectrum of American television viewers is precisely the broadcast networks' greatest strength. By focusing only on key demographics, by choosing to ignore their total viewership, they have surrendered their greatest advantage.
Oddly enough, there is a looming demographic reality that could help steer television news back toward its original purpose. There are tens of millions of baby boomers in their 40's and 50's and entering their 60's who have far more spending power than their 18-to-34-year-old counterparts. Television news may be debasing itself before the wrong demographic.
If the network news divisions cannot be convinced that their future depends on attracting all demographic groups, then perhaps, at least, they can be persuaded to aim for the largest single demographic with the most disposable income -- one that may actually have an appetite for serious news. That would seem like a no-brainer. It's regrettable, perhaps, that only money and the inclination to spend it will ultimately determine the face of television news, but, as a distinguished colleague of mine used to say: ''That's the way it is.''
Probably the worst that would happen to me is that I would be ordered to take some remedial courses at night with a bunch of fiteeen year old girls who were caught illegally downloading Napster. And then, a la James Frey, I can tell all my friends that I did 85 days of hard time, and was visited by John Bolton everyday-- and then sell the book rights to Nan "The Essential Truth" Talese.
(No emails: I know that the Napster cultural reference is woefully out of date, that Napster is now a legitimate business, in partnership with the record industry... and that some other renegade service has replaced Napster or what-not... but I never claimed that this blog was written by some type of hipster or anything. This blog is very uncool.)
I am going to blog some comments about this column later.... In the meantime, I recommend you read what Timothy Karr has to say.
Ted Koppel: And Now, a Word for Our Demographic
Special to the New York Times and (also) Whatever Already!
NOT all reporters have an unfinished novel gathering dust but many, including this one, do. If that isn't enough of a cliche, this novel's hero is a television anchor (always plant your pen in familiar turf) who, in the course of a minor traffic accident, bites the tip off his tongue. The ensuing speech impediment is sufficient to end his on-air career and he finds himself, recently divorced, now unemployed, at home and watching altogether too much television.
After several weeks of isolation he discovers on his voice mail a message from an old friend, the opinion-page editor of his hometown newspaper. She is urging him to write a piece about television news, which, after some hesitation, he does -- with a vengeance:
The earls and dukes and barons of television news have grown sleek and fat eating road kill. The victims, dispatched by political or special interest hit-and-run squads, are then hung up, displayed and consumed with unwholesome relish on television.
They wander the battlefields of other people's wars, these knights of the airwaves, disposing of the wounded from both armies, gorging themselves like the electronic vultures they are.
The popular illusion that television journalists are liberals does them too much honor. Like all mercenaries they fight for money, not ideology; but unlike true mercenaries, their loyalty is not for sale. It cannot be engaged because it does not exist. Their total lack of commitment to any cause has come to be defined as objectivity. Their daily preoccupation with the trivial and the banal has accumulated large audiences, which, in turn, has encouraged a descent into the search for items of even greater banality.
A wounded and bitter fellow, this fictional hero of mine, but his bilious arguments hardly seem all that dated. Now here I sit, having recently left ABC News after 42 years, and who should call but an editor friend of mine who, in a quirky convolution of real life's imitating unpublished fiction, has asked me to write this column examining the state of television news today.
Where to begin? Confession of the obvious seems like a reasonable starting point: I have become well known and well-off traveling the world on ABC's dime, charged only with ensuring that our viewers be well informed about important issues. For the better part of those 42 years, this arrangement worked to our mutual benefit and satisfaction. At the same time, I cannot help but see that the industry in which I have spent my entire adult life is in decline and in distress.
Once, 30 or 40 years ago, the target audience for network news was made up of everyone with a television, and the most common criticism lodged against us was that we were tempted to operate on a lowest-common-denominator basis.
This, however, was in the days before deregulation, when the Federal Communications Commission was still perceived to have teeth, and its mandate that broadcasters operate in ''the public interest, convenience and necessity'' was enough to give each licensee pause.
Network owners nurtured their news divisions, encouraged them to tackle serious issues, cultivated them as shields to be brandished before Congressional committees whenever questions were raised about the quality of entertainment programs and the vast sums earned by those programs. News divisions occasionally came under political pressures but rarely commercial ones. The expectation was that they would search out issues of importance, sift out the trivial and then tell the public what it needed to know.
With the advent of cable, satellite and broadband technology, today's marketplace has become so overcrowded that network news divisions are increasingly vulnerable to the dictatorship of the demographic. Now, every division of every network is expected to make a profit. And so we have entered the age of boutique journalism. The goal for the traditional broadcast networks now is to identify those segments of the audience considered most desirable by the advertising community and then to cater to them.
Most television news programs are therefore designed to satisfy the perceived appetites of our audiences. That may be not only acceptable but unavoidable in entertainment; in news, however, it is the journalists who should be telling their viewers what is important, not the other way around.
Indeed, in television news these days, the programs are being shaped to attract, most particularly, 18-to-34-year-old viewers. They, in turn, are presumed to be partly brain-dead -- though not so insensible as to be unmoved by the blandishments of sponsors.
Exceptions, it should be noted, remain. Thus it is that the evening news broadcasts of ABC, CBS and NBC are liberally studded with advertisements that clearly cater to older Americans. But this is a holdover from another era: the last gathering of more than 30 million tribal elders, as they clench their dentures while struggling to control esophageal eruptions of stomach acid to watch ''The News.'' That number still commands respect, but even the evening news programs, you will find (after the first block of headline material), are struggling to find a new format that will somehow appeal to younger viewers.
Washington news, for example, is covered with less and less enthusiasm and aggressiveness. The networks' foreign bureaus have, for some years now, been seen as too expensive to merit survival. Judged on the frequency with which their reports get airtime, they can no longer be deemed cost-effective. Most have either been closed or reduced in size to the point of irrelevance.
Simply stated, no audience is perceived to be clamoring for foreign news, the exceptions being wars in their early months that involve American troops, acts of terrorism and, for a couple of weeks or so, natural disasters of truly epic proportions.
You will still see foreign stories on the evening news broadcasts, but examine them carefully.
They are either reported by one of a half-dozen or so remaining foreign correspondents who now cover the world for each network, or the anchor simply narrates a piece of videotape shot by some other news agency. For big events, an anchor might parachute in for a couple of days of high drama coverage. But the age of the foreign correspondent, who knew a country or region intimately, is long over.
No television news executive is likely to acknowledge indifference to major events overseas or in our nation's capital, but he may, on occasion, concede that the viewers don't care, and therein lies the essential malignancy.
The accusation that television news has a political agenda misses the point. Right now, the main agenda is to give people what they want. It is not partisanship but profitability that shapes what you see.
Most particularly on cable news, a calculated subjectivity has, indeed, displaced the old-fashioned goal of conveying the news dispassionately. But that, too, has less to do with partisan politics than simple capitalism. Thus, one cable network experiments with the subjectivity of tender engagement: ''I care and therefore you should care.'' Another opts for chest-thumping certitude: ''I know and therefore you should care.''
Even Fox News's product has less to do with ideology and more to do with changing business models. Fox has succeeded financially because it tapped into a deep, rich vein of unfulfilled yearning among conservative American television viewers, but it created programming to satisfy the market, not the other way around. CNN, meanwhile, finds itself largely outmaneuvered, unwilling to accept the label of liberal alternative, experimenting instead with a form of journalism that stresses empathy over detachment.
Now, television news should not become a sort of intellectual broccoli to be jammed down our viewers' unwilling throats. We are obliged to make our offerings as palatable as possible. But there are too many important things happening in the world today to allow the diet to be determined to such a degree by the popular tastes of a relatively narrow and apparently uninterested demographic.
What is, ultimately, most confusing about the behavior of the big three networks is why they ever allowed themselves to be drawn onto a battlefield that so favors their cable competitors. At almost any time, the audience of a single network news program on just one broadcast network is greater than the combined audiences of CNN, Fox and MSNBC.
Reaching across the entire spectrum of American television viewers is precisely the broadcast networks' greatest strength. By focusing only on key demographics, by choosing to ignore their total viewership, they have surrendered their greatest advantage.
Oddly enough, there is a looming demographic reality that could help steer television news back toward its original purpose. There are tens of millions of baby boomers in their 40's and 50's and entering their 60's who have far more spending power than their 18-to-34-year-old counterparts. Television news may be debasing itself before the wrong demographic.
If the network news divisions cannot be convinced that their future depends on attracting all demographic groups, then perhaps, at least, they can be persuaded to aim for the largest single demographic with the most disposable income -- one that may actually have an appetite for serious news. That would seem like a no-brainer. It's regrettable, perhaps, that only money and the inclination to spend it will ultimately determine the face of television news, but, as a distinguished colleague of mine used to say: ''That's the way it is.''
Sunday, January 15, 2006
If the election were held today, the winner would be... not Tom Delay! A Houston Chronicle poll out this morning finds that at least half of those who voted for Delay the last time around are considering voting for someone else this time.
If the election were held today, the Chronicle poll found, only 22 percent of Delay's constituents would vote for him. In contrast, former Democratic Congressman Nick Lampson, who will oppose him in the general election, would garner 30 percent of the votes. And former Republican congressman Steven Stockman, who is likely to run as an independent in the race, would pick up 11 percent of voters. Stockman would also provide an outlet for die-hard Texas conservative Republicans, who don't want to vote for either Delay or a Democrat to have a third option on election day. A well-financed campaign by Stockman might make it very difficult for Delay to win back his congressional seat, should he run. And this recent NYT story says it has become increasingly more likely in recent days that Stockman will indeed run.
Delay's constituency aside, perhaps the more important vote regarding the soon-to-be former House majority leader will be that of a jury of his peers. They, of course, will be polled, not by the Houston Chronicle, but rather by a Travis county jury foreperson.
If the election were held today, the Chronicle poll found, only 22 percent of Delay's constituents would vote for him. In contrast, former Democratic Congressman Nick Lampson, who will oppose him in the general election, would garner 30 percent of the votes. And former Republican congressman Steven Stockman, who is likely to run as an independent in the race, would pick up 11 percent of voters. Stockman would also provide an outlet for die-hard Texas conservative Republicans, who don't want to vote for either Delay or a Democrat to have a third option on election day. A well-financed campaign by Stockman might make it very difficult for Delay to win back his congressional seat, should he run. And this recent NYT story says it has become increasingly more likely in recent days that Stockman will indeed run.
Delay's constituency aside, perhaps the more important vote regarding the soon-to-be former House majority leader will be that of a jury of his peers. They, of course, will be polled, not by the Houston Chronicle, but rather by a Travis county jury foreperson.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Josh Meyer has published a very important story on the front page of tomorrow's Los Angeles Times:
This is a very important story, and one that you have not read recently either in the Washington Post or New York Times. Josh Meyer has engaged in some extraordinary enterprise reporting to get this, but the fact that he was able to get a deputy assistant secretary of treasury to go on the record regarding the Saudis may indicate that the Bush administration may be getting tougher with the Saudis-- and to the minds of many of the beuracrats in the national security agencies I regularly speak to for my day job, not a moment too soon.
And the Saudis have some gripes of their own. A senior Saudi official, as paraphrased by Meyer, complains that "U.S. forces in Iraq have done little to patrol that country's borders with Saudi Arabia, and foreign fighters are entering Iraq through Syria and Iran." While foreign fighters only account for a small percentage of the insurgency, they are among the most deadliest and best-trained of the insurgents, most intelligence officials have believed for some time-- which only makes the issue of control of the borders even the more urgent.
WASHINGTON — Although Saudi Arabia has cracked down on militants within its borders, the kingdom has not met its promises to help prevent the spread of terrorism or curb the flow of money from Saudis to terrorist cells around the world, U.S. intelligence, diplomatic and other officials say. As a result, these critics say, countless young terrorism suspects are believed to have escaped the kingdom's tightening noose by fleeing across what critics call a porous border into Iraq.
U.S. military officials confirm an aggressive role by Saudi fighters in the insurgency in Iraq, where over the last year they reportedly accounted for more than half of all Arab militants killed.
And millions of dollars continue to flow from wealthy Saudis through Saudi-based Islamic charitable and relief organizations to Al Qaeda and other suspected terrorist groups abroad, aided by what the U.S. officials call Riyadh's failure to set up a government commission to police such groups as promised, senior U.S. officials from several counter-terrorism agencies said in interviews.Those officials said Saudi Arabia had taken some positive steps within its borders.
Read more here.But they criticized the Saudis for not taking a more active role in the global fight. Daniel L. Glaser, the deputy assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, recalled attending a counter-terrorism conference in Riyadh last February at which the Saudis declared they would be an international leader in fighting Al Qaeda and in eradicating terrorism worldwide.
Nearly a year later, Glaser and other U.S. officials said, those promises are unfulfilled."They promised to do it, and they need to live up to their promises," Glaser said. "They need to crack down operationally on donors in Saudi Arabia. And they need to exert their influence over their international charities abroad…. They have to care not just what Al Qaeda is doing just within their own borders but wherever it is operating."
This is a very important story, and one that you have not read recently either in the Washington Post or New York Times. Josh Meyer has engaged in some extraordinary enterprise reporting to get this, but the fact that he was able to get a deputy assistant secretary of treasury to go on the record regarding the Saudis may indicate that the Bush administration may be getting tougher with the Saudis-- and to the minds of many of the beuracrats in the national security agencies I regularly speak to for my day job, not a moment too soon.
And the Saudis have some gripes of their own. A senior Saudi official, as paraphrased by Meyer, complains that "U.S. forces in Iraq have done little to patrol that country's borders with Saudi Arabia, and foreign fighters are entering Iraq through Syria and Iran." While foreign fighters only account for a small percentage of the insurgency, they are among the most deadliest and best-trained of the insurgents, most intelligence officials have believed for some time-- which only makes the issue of control of the borders even the more urgent.
The Washington Post this morning gives major play this morning to an attack of Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) on the website of the (until now) obscure Cybercast News Service. It accuses
Murtha-- who had won eight military awards, including a Bronze star, and a Distinguished Service Medal of the United States Marine Corps, for his 37 years of military service-- of purportedly saying that he had not deserved to win two Purple Hearts also awarded him for his service during the Vietnam war.
The Post story, by reporters Howard Kurtz and Shallagh Murray, quotes extensively David Thibault, the editor in chief of the (who ever heard of them before the Washington Post decided to give them such prominence?) Cybercast News Service, as saying that Murtha's medals from 1967 are relevant now "because the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement."
But the article tells us very little about Thibault himself. Had the reporters done a simple Internet search, they would have discovered this biography of Thibault posted online which describes him as a "senior producer for a televised news magazine" broadcast and sponsored by the Republican National Committee. I dunno, but I for one, would have wanted to know that.
Thibault's background and those engaging in the Swiftboating of Murtha would be relevant to any news story on this issue, I would think.
And so would some independent examination by the Post as to whether there is even any veracity to the charges.
The New York Times takes a day or two, or longer, before doing stories like this, as do other papers. They tend to examine the motives and backgrounds of those making such charges, and whether or not they have any basis in fact. That's how the Times handled the allegations that swirled around John Kerry's war service.
The Post's news ethic tends more towards that simply because an allegation is made it should be reported. To do otherwise, some editors of the newspaper argue, would mean putting aside one's objectivity. But simply giving prominent play to allegations that might or might not turn out to be true at some later day seems to me to be subjectivity by some other name.
Update: 5:20 P.M., Saturday night: The Post article in amplifying the allegations of the Cybercast News Service, also, in turn quotes an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
What the Post leaves out of its story is that Saylor is deceased, and well, has been for some time now. (Saylor died way back in 1973, something that the Cybercast "News" Service, noted in their news story-- not to impugn their reporting practices.) In short, the Washington Post is relying on something said by a person with an axe to grind (Fox), who is quoting someone who is deceased (but who the newspaper forgot to tell you is deceased.) But it is even somewhat worse than that: the Post is quoting the ever-so-reliable and unbiased Cybercast News Service, which is quoting a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, which includes an allegation by Fox... who is citing someone now deceased.
Makes you want to drop a dime to Howie Kurtz! But alas, Kurtz wrote the story. Oh well.
Second update, 10:50 P.M., Saturday Night: In my original post, I mistakenly reported that Rep. Murtha won a Silver Star and two Bronze stars. Instead, he won a Bronze Star; a Distinguished Service Medal of the United States Marine Corps, and six other military awards for his 37 years of service with the Marine Corp. Apologies to my readers. A complete list of Murtha's military awards can be found here.
Third update, 12:43 P.M.: It gets worse. At a blogger, I am only an amateur at best. Jane Hamsher who knows how to do it right, and better than anyone else, has some new information. A natural born blogger! Jane very importantly points out that Cybercast never even actually interviewed Harry Fox.
Jane quotes the website as saying: "Cybercast News Service attempted to contact Fox for this article, but learned that the health of the 81-year-old was too poor to allow him to communicate."
So if I understand this correctly, regarding the purported allegations by the late Rep. Saylor that Rep. Murtha did not deserve his Purple Hearts, the Washington Post is relying on the reporting of the Cyercast News Service, which is in turn is relying on comments made years ago by Harry Fox, who is in turn is quoting the late Congressman Saylor-- who died all the way back in 1973. The Post should have done a much better job of making this clear in their story-- in my humble opinion-- if they should have even published a story at all.
Murtha-- who had won eight military awards, including a Bronze star, and a Distinguished Service Medal of the United States Marine Corps, for his 37 years of military service-- of purportedly saying that he had not deserved to win two Purple Hearts also awarded him for his service during the Vietnam war.
The Post story, by reporters Howard Kurtz and Shallagh Murray, quotes extensively David Thibault, the editor in chief of the (who ever heard of them before the Washington Post decided to give them such prominence?) Cybercast News Service, as saying that Murtha's medals from 1967 are relevant now "because the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement."
But the article tells us very little about Thibault himself. Had the reporters done a simple Internet search, they would have discovered this biography of Thibault posted online which describes him as a "senior producer for a televised news magazine" broadcast and sponsored by the Republican National Committee. I dunno, but I for one, would have wanted to know that.
Thibault's background and those engaging in the Swiftboating of Murtha would be relevant to any news story on this issue, I would think.
And so would some independent examination by the Post as to whether there is even any veracity to the charges.
The New York Times takes a day or two, or longer, before doing stories like this, as do other papers. They tend to examine the motives and backgrounds of those making such charges, and whether or not they have any basis in fact. That's how the Times handled the allegations that swirled around John Kerry's war service.
The Post's news ethic tends more towards that simply because an allegation is made it should be reported. To do otherwise, some editors of the newspaper argue, would mean putting aside one's objectivity. But simply giving prominent play to allegations that might or might not turn out to be true at some later day seems to me to be subjectivity by some other name.
Update: 5:20 P.M., Saturday night: The Post article in amplifying the allegations of the Cybercast News Service, also, in turn quotes an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
The article included a 1996 quote from Harry Fox, who worked for former representative John Saylor (R-Pa.), telling a local newspaper that Murtha was "pretending to be a big war hero" Fox, who lost a 1974 election to Murtha, said the 38-year old Marine veteran had asked Saylor for assistance in obtaining the Purple Hearts because the office believed he lacked adequate evidence of his
wounds.
What the Post leaves out of its story is that Saylor is deceased, and well, has been for some time now. (Saylor died way back in 1973, something that the Cybercast "News" Service, noted in their news story-- not to impugn their reporting practices.) In short, the Washington Post is relying on something said by a person with an axe to grind (Fox), who is quoting someone who is deceased (but who the newspaper forgot to tell you is deceased.) But it is even somewhat worse than that: the Post is quoting the ever-so-reliable and unbiased Cybercast News Service, which is quoting a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, which includes an allegation by Fox... who is citing someone now deceased.
Makes you want to drop a dime to Howie Kurtz! But alas, Kurtz wrote the story. Oh well.
Second update, 10:50 P.M., Saturday Night: In my original post, I mistakenly reported that Rep. Murtha won a Silver Star and two Bronze stars. Instead, he won a Bronze Star; a Distinguished Service Medal of the United States Marine Corps, and six other military awards for his 37 years of service with the Marine Corp. Apologies to my readers. A complete list of Murtha's military awards can be found here.
Third update, 12:43 P.M.: It gets worse. At a blogger, I am only an amateur at best. Jane Hamsher who knows how to do it right, and better than anyone else, has some new information. A natural born blogger! Jane very importantly points out that Cybercast never even actually interviewed Harry Fox.
Jane quotes the website as saying: "Cybercast News Service attempted to contact Fox for this article, but learned that the health of the 81-year-old was too poor to allow him to communicate."
So if I understand this correctly, regarding the purported allegations by the late Rep. Saylor that Rep. Murtha did not deserve his Purple Hearts, the Washington Post is relying on the reporting of the Cyercast News Service, which is in turn is relying on comments made years ago by Harry Fox, who is in turn is quoting the late Congressman Saylor-- who died all the way back in 1973. The Post should have done a much better job of making this clear in their story-- in my humble opinion-- if they should have even published a story at all.
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