Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Woooodwaaaard

Rich Galen

Friday November 18, 2005

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Oh. My. God. Bob Woodward appears to have lied. By omission and commission.

Bob Woodward. A name which is spoken by other reporters in the hushed tones generally reserved for recently deceased Popes by Catholic priests and nuns: Bob Woooodwaaaard.

I'll bet 75 percent of senior writers, editors, and reporters working in Washington, DC today are doing what they do because of Bob Woodward. Because they wanted to be just like Bob Woodward.

Woooodwaaaard. Watergate. Whew.

For those of you who do not actually live in, and breathe the air of, your Nation's Capital let me review the bidding:

In 2003 someone leaked the name Valerie Plame to Bob Novak who wrote a column about the fact that (a) she was Joe Wilson's wife and (b) worked at the CIA. It has never been clear that this was a crime.

Since then, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been working to ferret out who might have said what to whom and when.

Three weeks ago Your Nation's Capital had the city-wide vapors - complete with projectile sweat and fluttering eyelids - waiting to see who would be indicted.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was it. And not for disclosing Valerie Plame's name, but for allegedly lying to investigators and the grand jury about whether he told reporters about her, or whether they had told him.

During all this, a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, had refused to testify about her discussions with Scooter Libby because she had promised him confidentiality as a source.

She went to jail for 85 days for contempt of court and no one much cared, because no one actually LIKES Judith Miller. No one says "Juuuudith" if you know what I mean and I think you do.

After realizing no one was going to bust her out, Libby released her from her pledge, she hied it over to the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse, and told all.

The executive �ber editor of the NY Times wrote a memo to the staff wagging his editorial finger in Miller's face for not being forthcoming about, and for having "entanglements" with, Libby. (That word launched eyebrows so high and so fast that the streets around the National Press Building were fairly littered with bifocals.)

Miller wrote that she had a conversation with the NY Times managing editor Jill Abramson about pursuing a story about Ms. Plame; a conversation which Abramson denies ever took place.

Miller remembers it differently than Abramson.

In the current matter, someone had told Woodward about Valerie Plame a month or so before someone (we don't know the identity of the someone or someones) had told Novak about her. But Woodward decided to hide that fact from everyone including his editor because, according to a Howard Kurtz piece in the Washington Post, "I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed."

So, Woodward hid substantive facts from his editor at the Washington Post, just as Judith Miller had done at the NY Times.

The Washington Post has a highly regarded national security affairs reporter named Walter Pincus who was subpoenaed to, and did, testify before the grand jury. Woodward allowed a colleague be dragged into the fray, but hid his own knowledge so his shoes didn't get muddied. What a guy.

Woodward has also said that he "passed along a tip about Plame to � Pincus in June 2003, but Pincus says he has no recollection of such a conversation."

Woodward remembers it differently than Pincus.

If I were Scooter Libby's defense attorney, here's what I would do:

I would call Judith Miller and ask her about her conversation with Jill Abramson. I would call Abramson and ask her if she remembered that conversation.
I would call Bob Woodward and ask him about his conversation with Walter Pincus. I would call Pincus and ask him if he remembered that conversation.

I would tell the jury, in my closing argument, that these four nationally recognized journalists - who are trained from birth to take care in remembering what they say and what they hear - disagree on whether or not these conversations ever happened.

Scooter Libby, who has dozens of such conversations per day - thousands per month - should not be penalized for not remembering the details of discussions years after they took place.

The defense rests.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to the Howard Kurtz/Washington Post coverage; the definition of the verb: to hie,; a stupid Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the day.

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