Howard Kurtz Live Chat

Online now. (Update: Done) And here's his Media Notes column and the updated online version; the main theme being bad morale, for good reason, within newspapers and other traditional forms of journalism. In the live chat, we have this:

Arlington, Va.: I think that many mainstream media outlets severely damaged their credibility on free speech/press issues by hitching onto the Joe Wilson bandwagon. His wife tried to hide behind her CIA covert status to undermine the Bush administration by dispatching him to Niger and letting him publish a misleading op-ed in the New York Times. In any other instance, the media would have seen this as an abuse of classified status, and would have laughed when they learned that she had last served overseas seven years ago. However, unlike last week when the Post broke a liberal-celebrated story about classified CIA prisons, the media in the former instance chose to clamor for an investigation, and seemed to celebrate an indictment based on charges not directly related to the alleged "outing." This smells a lot like the suppression of freedom of speech and public right to know, which the media usually rail against. I think the hypocrisy here is disgusting, especially as it is starting to have real legal consequences for people from one side of the political spectrum.

Howard Kurtz: Whether you think Joe Wilson should have been sent by the CIA or not, and whether you think he handled himself well or not, he's entitled to publish his views in a New York Times op-ed. And nothing he's done or hasn't done--and his credibility has certainly come into question--excuses an administration effort to retaliate against him that has led to the indictment of Dick Cheney's former top aide. Patrick Fitzgerald concluded, by the way, based in part on interviewing neighbors, that Valerie Plame still had covert status in that people didn't know she worked for the CIA.

It is amusing--if you're not Lewis Libby--to note the situational ethics that journalists apply to leaks; it has scarcely entered the MSM's collective mind that the leaks in Dana Priest's story about formerly secret CIA prisons posed any serious risk to national security. But what's probably more noteworthy is Kurtz's comment that Wilson is "entitled to publish his views in a New York Times Op-Ed." Because as Victoria Toensing has been pointing out, it usually isn't:

...the CIA, either purposely or with gross negligence, made a series of decisions that led to Ms. Plame becoming a household name:

• The CIA sent her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger on a sensitive mission regarding WMD. He was to determine whether Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake, an essential ingredient for unconventional weapons. However, it was Ms. Plame, not Mr. Wilson, who was the WMD expert. Moreover, Mr. Wilson had no intelligence background, was never a senior person in Niger when he was in the State Department, and was opposed to the administration's Iraq policy. The assignment was given, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, at Ms. Plame's suggestion.

• Mr. Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement, a mandatory act for the rest of us who either carry out any similar CIA assignment or represent CIA clients.

• When he returned from Niger, Mr. Wilson was not required to write a report, but rather merely to provide an oral briefing....

• Although Mr. Wilson did not have to write even one word for the agency that sent him on the mission at taxpayer's expense, over a year later he was permitted to tell all about this sensitive assignment in the New York Times. For the rest of us, writing about such an assignment would mean we'd have to bring our proposed op-ed before the CIA's Prepublication Review Board and spend countless hours arguing over every word to be published...

Something very strange is going on here. I am confident the energies of the Post are not being focused on finding out what that is.

Update: More on Wilson:

"Retaliate"?!?: Are you REALLY saying that the White House shouldn't be able to defend itself against attacks by the likes of Joe Wilson? Wilson should be able to criticize anyone and everyone, but noone is allowed to say a word about him?

The way I read it, Libby/Rove/Novak's source didn't "out" Plame as "retaliation" but to explain how such an anti-administration hack was sent on such a sensitive mission.

Howard Kurtz: I have ABSOLUTELY no problem with any administration taking on its critics, and White House officials were welcome to slam Joe Wilson and challenge his mission and his conclusions as hard as he was hitting them. What I do have a problem with is doing this surreptitiously and convincing journalists to disclose the identity of a CIA operative who happened to be married to the administration critic.

That's still an allegation, isn't it--that Libby, for example, "convinced" journalists to disclose Plame's identity as an "operative" as some kind of retaliation. And Kurtz knows better than to describe her as someone "who happened to be married" to Wilson. She recommended sending him to Niger. Come on

Update: In a news story, this would be called "rowback"--correcting the record, without acknowledging a correction--

Washington, D.C.: I think the point you're missing about the Joe Wilson story is that the fact that he was dispatched to his CIA wife was a very integral part of the story that deserved to be part of the public record. You seem to want to deny the public that piece of information.

Howard Kurtz: That's because it's not true. At most, Wilson's wife suggested him for the mission. It was the CIA that decided to send him to Niger.

Okay, Washington DC is exagerrating, if for no other reason than Plame didn't have the authority to singlehandedly send anyone anywhere. But she did recommend him for the trip--not "at most" but "according to the Senate Intelligence Committee." This Kurtz should with the other one who says Plame just happened to be married to Wilson. Hey, it's a live chat.

Update: Chat's over.