{"id":6241,"date":"2006-01-04T09:10:27","date_gmt":"2006-01-04T14:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6241"},"modified":"2006-01-04T09:10:27","modified_gmt":"2006-01-04T14:10:27","slug":"not-all-leaks-are-created-equal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/not-all-leaks-are-created-equal\/","title":{"rendered":"Not all leaks are created equal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Late last week, the Justice Department announced that it was <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20051230\/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe\/domestic_spying_probe;_ylt=AvZF1RNCi71.1AeYRajelAqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--\">launching a criminal investigation<\/a>, not into Bush&#8217;s warrantless-search program, but into the leak that exposed the program. The president&#8217;s allies raised a predictable refrain: Dems wanted a leak investigation when it came to Valerie Plame, so what&#8217;s wrong with a leak investigation now?<\/p>\n<p>I wrote <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/6212.html\">a bit<\/a> about this last week, but the New York Times did a nice job <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/01\/04\/opinion\/04wed2.html\">in an editorial<\/a> today highlighting the qualitative differences, in case Bush supporters had missed them.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There is a world of difference between that case and a current one in which the administration is trying to find the sources of a New York Times report that President Bush secretly authorized spying on American citizens without warrants. The spying report was a classic attempt to give the public information it deserves to have. The Valerie Wilson case began with a cynical effort by the administration to deflect public attention from hyped prewar intelligence on Iraq. [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Leak investigations are often designed to distract the public from the real issues by blaming the messenger. Take the third leak inquiry, into a Washington Post report on secret overseas C.I.A. camps where prisoners are tortured or shipped to other countries for torture. The administration said the reporting had damaged America&#8217;s image. Actually, the secret detentions and torture did that.<\/p>\n<p>Illegal spying and torture need to be investigated, not whistle-blowers and newspapers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t expect conservatives to drop the hypocrisy charge from their talking points &#8212; it is, after all, easier than trying to defend the president&#8217;s program &#8212; but it&#8217;s worth remembering why the argument is baseless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late last week, the Justice Department announced that it was launching a criminal investigation, not into Bush&#8217;s warrantless-search program, but into the leak that exposed the program. The president&#8217;s allies raised a predictable refrain: Dems wanted a leak investigation when it came to Valerie Plame, so what&#8217;s wrong with a leak investigation now? I wrote [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}