PostWatch

Competing Rough Drafts of Libby History

Byron York:

A pattern is emerging at the Lewis Libby trial, now in the middle of its third week in the federal courthouse in Washington. The pattern is this: A witness called by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald delivers testimony that seems clearly damaging to Libby, strongly suggesting that Libby lied when he testified before prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s grand jury in the CIA-leak affair. And then Libby’s lawyers take over, suggesting that the witness’s memory is so selective, or so flawed, or so sketchy as to render his or her testimony useless.

Each day, most news reports from the trial focus on the damage done to Libby’s case; there are lots of headlines like “Ex-Aide Contradicts Libby” and “Reporter’s Account Hurts Libby’s Defense.”

Here's the latter: today's Reporter's Account Hurts Libby Defense by Carol Leonnig and Amy Goldstein on A1:

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller yesterday helped the prosecutor who landed her in jail and forced her into the witness chair, providing potentially damaging information about the confidential administration source she tried to shield, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby....

However, as York continues:

But each day, the question is not what headline writers are taking from events in the courtroom but what jurors are making of it. Are they seeing an overwhelming case for Libby’s guilt? Or are they seeing a case in which everyone involved seems to have forgotten something — and no one is truly credible? We just don’t know.

The latest witness to contradict Libby and then find her credibility seriously challenged is Judith Miller, the former New York Times reporter who went to jail for 85 days in an effort to avoid testifying in the case....

To be fair, the Post's Leonnig and Goldstein do eventually reference Libby's attorney challenging Miller's memory--it just isn't the chief frame of the story. Howard Kurtz writes about the problem early and often in his account:

In taking the stand in U.S. District Court against her once-secret source, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Miller found herself answering questions about the very methods that she has spent a professional lifetime concealing. Rather than pointing out flaws in the accounts of public officials, she found herself struggling to explain a spotty memory and to justify why she wrote nothing about the sensitive -- and, as it turned out, classified -- information she had been handed. Once an independent operator who called herself "Miss Run Amok," she disputed what her many critics said was obvious: that Vice President Cheney's former top aide had been trying to manipulate her...

Take your pick--York, Leonnig/Goldstein, Kurtz, Talk Left ....but really everyone knows Tom Maguire's Just One Minute is your friendly local neighborhood location for one-stop shopping.

Oh, That Liberal Media

It's what they do. It's in the manual.

Massive March for Life anti-abortion rally on Jan. 22 gets a middling story on A10, Abortion Foes to Renew Efforts.

Possibly as large anti-war rally gets Thousands Protest Bush Policy on top of A1 with banner photo; and Student Protestors, Fighting Image of Apathy, Call for a Cohesive Movement on A8, the rest of the page filled with a Views of the March photo diary; and Fonda Reprises A Famous Role on D1.

Who knows what else in there; time for breakfast. Oh, on line, the photo gallery has 15 shots, all of them antiwar. The photo gallery for the anti-abortion march: 8 photos, 5 of the pro-life marchers, three showing counter-protesters.

In other words, business as usual.

Here's the bonus Voices From The Protest feature online. I can't link to the equivalent for the March of Life, because there isn't one.

Odd

Michael Powell writes Jimmy Carter's 'Peace' Mission To Brandeis, about the former president's recent book and his defense of it at a Brandeis University address. But there's nothing here about his refusal to debate Alan Dershowitz, actually nothing about Dershowitz at all, who appeared afterwards to make his rebuttal. For that, go to a story by Justin Sulksy at the student newspaper The Justice, which is packed with coverage.

Stem Cell Story: It's A Miracle

Not the science--Scientists See Potential in Amniotic Stem Cells--since non-embryonic stem cell advances take place frequently these days. No, the miracle is that Rick Weiss reported on one:

A type of cell that floats freely in the amniotic fluid of pregnant women has been found to have many of the same traits as embryonic stem cells, including an ability to grow into brain, muscle and other tissues that could be used to treat a variety of diseases, scientists reported yesterday.

The cells, shed by the developing fetus and easily retrieved during routine prenatal testing, are easier to maintain in laboratory dishes than embryonic stem cells -- the highly versatile cells that come from destroyed human embryos and are at the center of a heated congressional debate that will resume this week.

Moreover, because the cells are a genetic match to the developing fetus, tissues grown from them in the laboratory will not be rejected if they are used to treat birth defects in that newborn, researchers said. Alternatively, the cells could be frozen, providing a personalized tissue bank for use later in life....

Although several stem cell experts applauded the work, some questioned the novelty of the newly described cells. Similar cells have been under study for years with little fanfare, they noted.

The Fanfare Deficit certainly applies to the way that field has been covered at the Post by Weiss.

And though Atala's careful characterization of them is better than any previously done, they said, it is not clear that his cells are truly different than ones others have in hand.

At Children's Hospital in Boston, for example, Dario Fauza, a pediatric surgeon, has been cultivating similar cells and getting them to grow into cartilage, which he has used to repair defective windpipes in newborn sheep. He has also grown the cells into tendon tissue that was used to repair defective diaphragms in sheep.

Hmm, let's see what Weiss wrote about this advance in the past:

Not Quite There

Episcopal Churches' Breakaway Evolved Over 30 Years by Alan Cooperman and Jacqueline Salmon provides, in the hed, a false glimmer of hope that the Post will locate conservative Episcopal parishes in the global Anglican communion. The word "Anglican" does appear several times and we get one fleeting reference to the 75 million-member Anglican Communion, the worldwide family of churches descended from the Church of England, but that's about it.

What we do learn about is the not-uninteresting role of charismatic worship at the historic Truro and Falls Church parishes that recently voted to leave the American branch of Anglicanism, the Episcopal Church, to more closely associate with that 75 million-member Anglican Communion, the worldwide family of churches descended from the Church of England. Cooperman and Salmon, after the usual dreadful dark-and-stormy night setup, write:

..the votes appear less sudden or surprising when one realizes that for more than 30 years, Truro and The Falls Church have been part of a "charismatic revival" within mainline Protestantism, said the Rev. Robert W. Prichard, professor of Christianity in America at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria.

Charismatic, in this case, refers to an ecstatic style of worship that includes speaking in tongues, a stream of unintelligible syllables signifying that the Holy Spirit has entered the worshiper. It is a hallmark of the fast-growing Pentecostal movement but unusual for Episcopalians, who are so thoroughly associated with solemnity and tradition that they are sometimes referred to teasingly as "the frozen chosen."

As I say, interesting and I didn't know this was part of the scene at those churches. But, as I've said before, the entire episode is less sudden and surprising when you've followed the battles within that church and the larger Anglican communion for more than six months, and especially when you stop analyzing the Episcopal Church as the center of everything Anglican.

Informed comment over at Titus One Nine including my own (yet unanswered!) question about a startling statistic from the story:

At least two-thirds of the worshipers are Methodists, Presbyterians or Baptists, and there is no pressure on them to be confirmed as Episcopalians, said the Rev. Rick Wright, associate rector.

Update: Rising star blogger Mary Katharine Ham attends the church, and thinks it is just possible the reporters ever so slightly exagerrated the role of charismatic worship there.

Recent posts on this subject:

Ignorance in Action
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