Starting off with Bob Somerby's Daily Howler from yesterday:
Can anyone take this man seriously? Why is Miller "the only person in jail right now?" Duh. Because she's the only person ordered to testify who then refused to do so! A second-grader could "figure this out"--but people like Friedman just keep pretending that they're baffled by the logic. But then, no one serves their own self-interest like the stars of the Washington press corps. Consider yesterday's Diane Rehm Show, in which Bob Woodward and Diane Rehm puzzled hard, pretending that they too couldn't fathom the logic of the puzzling Plame probe.
We thought their exchange was simply remarkable. Here's the start of the silliest passage (about twenty minutes in). The pair pretend that they just can't imagine what the probe is about:
REHM (7/12/05): I don't understand what law has been broken in this Judith Miller case and in the Matt Cooper case.
WOODWARD: I don't either, and I have not seen any evidence that a law has been broken...
Duh. As everyone understands, it may turn out that no law has been broken; that’s what the grand jury is trying to determine! But everyone knows what laws may have been broken--everyone except these clueless scribes, who brazenly pimp their cohort's self-interest. As Woodward continues, he blames the whole thing on that out-of-control special prosecutor:
WOODWARD (continuing directly): Remember, this is the special prosecutor. This is not a case where the White House or the Justice Department on their own have said, "Oh yeah, go after reporters." I think the White House and Karl Rove, now that he's in the spotlight, dislike the special prosecutor in this whole process as much as the press does....
Double completely non-secret duh! Of course Rove doesn't like this prosecutor; he may end up charging Rove with a crime! But at any rate, the spinning continued.
Excerpt would be longer but I'm pressed for time this morning (quotation marks, double dashes, etc. have to be altered due to the font Somerby uses contrasted with the font used here, I don't have time to do that this morning).
Somerby didn't go into yesterday's mid-morning entry because of the fact that the Howler wasn't up yet. I held the entry for as long as I could.
When The Howler did go up, a number of you read it. Some assumed a decision had been made to leave Somerby out. That wasn't the case. A huge number of you have e-mailed to note how much you disagree with Somerby. That's your right.
He's an important voice and I noted a long time ago that we didn't have to agree with him for him to be noted. He's got a place at the table.
And he would have been noted last night except Betty phoned feeling painted into a corner. We brainstormed and when an idea finally occurred it was very late. The deal we agreed to was that we'd both go to sleep.
FYI, Betty's having a hard time with posts because there are things she wants to note but it's very hard to work them into entries. She's working from a story outline for Betina (Thomas Friedman's "wife") and it's really difficult to interject this item or that item into her storyline.
She's so far not broken character in at her site. So now there's a way (hopefully) for her to note things and not end up spending days attempting to figure out how Betina or Friedman or some character can bring them up.
But there are e-mails again saying how happy some are that we didn't note the Wednesday Howler. We were noting it, there just wasn't time last night. It's noted now. People can disagree. Maybe they'll find something that makes their own views stronger. Maybe they'll just be upset. But we'll always note Somerby.
For those wanting an take on the Wednesday Howler, Rebecca's done (as pointed out by many members) a post yesterday entitled "to bobby."
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
