Weekly News Column Opinion and Laughs on The Record

Prosecute criminals; not reporters and gov't sources

Jeff Borgardt's Soundoff from Summit Column 11/3/05

 That’s it people. I’m writing about the CIA leak case.
    I’ve waited this long.
    I can be silent no more.
    First of all, it has a lot of Chicago connections for such a national story. Two of the main characters in this plot are Chicago’s Robert Novak and Patrick Fitzgerald.
    Arch-conservative pundit and former Joliet Herald reporter Bob Novak is now a syndicated columnist for the Sun-Times who went native in D.C. three decades ago. New Yorker Fitzgerald is the prosecutor in the case and has been working as the U.S. Attorney
for Northern Illinois.
    Fitz was tapped by the Justice Department to lead a team of federales to discover who in the White House told a reporter that the wife of ambassador Joseph WIlson is a covert CIA agent.
    People wanted to know how the information became public after Novak wrote a column about it.
    They said it was a bad felony to reveal Valerie Plame’s CIA status and could well set back the agency and their spies.
    Last week, Fitz indicted the vice-president’s top staffer for lying during the investigation. Everyone says that Scooter Libby told reporters about Plame for revenge since Wilson revealed that he was dispatched to Africa to determine if Saddam Hussein was
trying to acquire uranium. Wilson found Saddam was clear of the charge yet the White House maintained otherwise to drum up war. When WIlson went public with the dirty laundry, the White House punched back and revealed Plame’s identity.
    Libby faces decades in jail and he is not the only one in the slammer. Fitzgerald jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller for more than 80 days.
    The Miller section of this saga has its own dynamics and the reporter does not come out looking too great.
    But I’m not concerned about that.
    Mostly, I don’t like it when the federal government throws reporters in jail for doing their job.
    It is wrong.
    Fitzgerald never should have jailed Miller or compelled any reporters to reveal their sources in the first place.
    Talking to a reporter and giving them news is not a crime.
    Libby should not be facing time in jail and Miller should have never been thrown in the slammer either.
    It’s ridiculous.
    Fitzgerald should be going after real criminals in Chicago and not flying to D.C. and throwing big-foot reporters and White House staffers in jail just to get his name in the national press.
    What are the crimes of Libby and Miller? Refusing to disclose information about a phone call and fibbing about a phone call.
    Get real. That’s not high crime, it’s gossip.