No Longer Catapulting the Propaganda?
If you’re Alberto Gonzales and The New York Sun throws you under the bus, you know you’re in trouble.
The "New" Sun, which fancies itself the conservative answer to the New York Observer, has long been NYC’s local House Organ for the Bush administration. But from today’s edition:
The top Republican on the House’s main investigative committee, Rep. Thomas Davis of Virginia, is charging the Justice Department with stonewalling his inquiries about the FBI’s assertion that it closed several leak investigations because of a lack of cooperation on the part of other government officials.
Apparently The Sun was on this beat already (since I tend to regard it as a minor version of Fux News, I don’t bother reading it regularly):
In January, Mr. Davis asked the Justice Department about a report in The New York Sun that at least three leak inquiries were shut down after officials at the "victim agency" ignored phone calls and canceled meetings with FBI agents assigned to the probes. The agents said some requests for information were rebuffed for more than a year.
So Davis sends a letter:
"General Gonzales, it would be an understatement to say I am frustrated and disappointed by your department’s response," Mr. Davis wrote. Mr. Davis said he would agree to procedures for a classified briefing, but that the Justice Department replied that "the concern is not classification."
[Ed. rant: Okay, I can’t let this pass. The appellation is "Attorney General," NOT "General." The post is not a military, but a distinctly civilian, one. This bullshit all started with Ashcroft, and the Rethugs are still trying to institutionalize it. And w should recognize it for what it is: It’s part of their love affair with fascism. Because if they can extra-legally militarize the nation’s top law enforcement entity, it immediately eases the administration’s ability to use paramilitary tactics against the civilian population. Cf. also Orwell, Foucault. Words matter, folks! /rant]
Back to Gonzo: The especially striking thing about this article, though, is its vagueness. And that’s no accident: You can’t tell from the language used 1) whether the inquiries were legitimate and were stonewalled; 2) whether they were persecutory and the targets rightly defended themselves; or 3) whether they were shams all the way around.
It’s interesting that these were "leak investigations": Were these attempts by the administration and its congressional supporters to stifle whistleblowers? Or were they actually real investigations - into, say, the Plame leak?
My money’s on the former, which would explain why the Rethugs are willing to criticize Gonzo openly, and why The Sun is willing to shine a spotlight on it. I’d really like to know 1) the subject of the "leaks"; 2) the identity of the so-called "victim agency"; and 3) if "the concern is not classification," exactly what it is then.
No, I’m not holding my breath.
