Larry Johnson and Pat Lang felt discouraged Friday night.
The mainstream media had written scantily about the testimony by Johnson, the former CIA and State Dept. intelligence analyst, and his mentor Lang, a retired colonel and intelligence expert, before the “Hearing on Security Implications of Revealing Covert Agent’s Identity” (PDF format) on july 22, 2005.
The joint Senate/House informal hearing by Democrats remains the #1 requested video at C-SPAN. C-SPAN, in response to demand, reaired the testimony three times on Friday afternoon and evening.
On Saturday morning, Johnson was interviewed by CBS Evening News but his interview was axed from the report. In an e-mail to a CBS news producer, Johnson wrote:
Our testimony yesterday on this issue before a joint committee of Senate and House Democrats has been the most widely requested piece that C-Span has had in quite a while. Yet, most of the Main Stream Media seems to be cowering in fear at following this story. Pretty sad. Who is out there speaking on behalf of Valerie Plame? Only a few of us.
Pat Lang told me earlier today this is what would happen.
I won’t be available for CBS in the future. No need to waste my time with you folks because, whether I spend time with you or not, the story gets ignored.
Larry
Below:
- Johnson’s experience with CBS, told in e-mails between him and the producer
- How Johnson’s subsequent Saturday morning Democratic radio address got the mainstream media interested in his Friday testimony, and
- How the rightwing blogs have reacted to the Friday hearing
Below:
- Johnson’s experience with CBS, told in e-mails between him and the producer
- How Johnson’s subsequent Saturday morning Democratic radio address got the mainstream media interested in his Friday testimony, and
- How the rightwing blogs have reacted to the Friday hearing
Crooks & Liars has the series of e-mails between Johnson and CBS news producer Carrie Rabin:
From: Rabin, Carrie
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 12:38 PM
To: ‘LCJohnson@
Subject: GREETINGS FROM CBS NEWSHello there,
Hoping to reach you this fine Saturday. We’re doing a story for tonight’s Evening News on the latest developments in the Karl Rove/Valerie Plame case, and your testimony yesterday about what all this means for national security.
If you can give me a call back: 202-XXXXXX, I’d really appreciate it.
Thanks so much,
Carrie Rabin
Producer
CBS News
Johnson comments, “I did and they came out for an interview. I spent about a half hour with them.” Afterwards, Johnson received this e-mail from Rabin:
From: “Rabin, Carrie”
Sent: Jul 23, 2005 6:05 PM
To: “‘lcj”
Subject: RE: GREETINGS FROM CBS NEWS
Thanks so much for speaking with us.Unfortunately, our piece was cut to just a minute, and we had to kill our sound bite with you. But we’ll save the interview for the numerous other broadcasts interested in the story.
Thanks again for your time…and hope to speak with you soon…
Carrie
A disgusted Johnson replied in that he would no longer accept interview requests from CBS News:
Our testimony yesterday on this issue before a joint committee of Senate and House Democrats has been the most widely requested piece that C-Span has had in quite a while. Yet, most of the Main Stream Media seems to be cowering in fear at following this story. Pretty sad. Who is out there speaking on behalf of Valerie Plame? Only a few of us.
Pat Lang told me earlier today this is what would happen.
I won’t be available for CBS in the future. No need to waste my time with you folks because, whether I spend time with you or not, the story gets ignored.
Larry
The mainstream media, however, began to pick up the story later on Saturday, after Johnson — a registered Republican — gave the Saturday morning Democratic radio address, which always follows President Bush’s regular Saturday morning radio talk.
It was a master stroke by the Democratic party. It gave “Oomph” to Friday’s testimony, and gave the media a political angle to the Friday testimony.
Now, a search of Google News shows close to 400 news stories on Friday’s hearing along with Johnson’s radio address.
On the car radio yesterday, I heard the top-of-the-hour radio news mention both Johnson’s radio address and the testimony. While visiting relatives, we turned on the news and noted that CNN carried the story on its bottom-of-the-screen ticker as well as reporting the story.
Friday night, I wrote a note of thanks to Larry Johnson, and mentioned that I wondered just how long it would take the rightwing blogs to start demonizing him and Pat Lang. It’d be easy for the rightwing bloggers to find their testimony, which both men have posted at Johnson’s blog, No Quarter.
So, last night and this morning, I searched the major rightwing blogs. I began at Power Line, and used its right-column list of approved blogs to search more rightwing blogs:
Armavirumque
Austin Bay
Belmont Club
Chrenkoff
Claremont Institute
InstaPundit
Little Green Footballs
Lucianne
Michelle Malkin
No Left Turns
PoliPundit
Real Clear Politics
Right Wing News
Roger L. Simon
Scrappleface
Tim Blair
Some blogs had search engines. For those that didn’t, I used Google advanced Web site search.
None of the blogs has any record of Larry Johnson’s name or any mention of the testimony of the inteligence experts — or Col. Patrick Lang (Ret.) who, besides being an expert on intelligence, is a retired special forces officer, Dept. of Defense senior official and West Point professor.
Little Green Footballs, for instance, is still using the Newsweek/Koran “phony” story:
Apparently, Newsweek’s phony Koran-in-a-commode story is partly to blame for the London bombings: Militant longed for suicide mission.
Most of the blogs are posting about the “liberals” who blame Bush and Blair for the London and Egyptian bombings.
Perhaps solid intelligence credentials — and highly credible testimony — carry some weight with the rightwing bloggers?
Enough that they’ll shut up about Valerie Plame being a desk jockey at the CIA? We’ll wait and see. Probably, they’ll continue to label Plame and ignore intelligence experts’ testimony.
Fox News’s Web site carries a wire story on the hearing Friday, but no story of Johnson’s radio address on Saturday.
I haven’t watched Fox News TV today, so have no idea if its pundits have discussed the testimony. Hopefully, by tomorrow, Media Matters will have tracked any comments on Fox, as Media Matters has the comments of GOP Chair Ken Mehlman and WSJ’s John Fund.
See Also: Captain Future’s two-part diaries that comment in detail on the testimony Friday.
Update [2005-7-24 14:36:12 by susanhu]:
From today’s post by Larry Johnson at his blog, No Quarter:
INCOMPETENCE ON SENATE INTEL
by
Larry C. Johnson
I guess Senator Pat Roberts believes that if he repeats a lie long enough it eventually becomes true. While it is one thing for a political bag carrier like Ken Mehlman to be woefully ignorant about CIA practices and procedures, it is downright alarming that Senator Roberts can be so misinformed. Today, while appearing on CNN’s Late Edition, Roberts repeated the specious claim that Valerie Plame could not be undercover because she went to work everyday at CIA Headquarters.
Folks, there is no excuse for this level of incompetence. There are thousands of undercover CIA employees who drive through the three gates at CIA Headquarters in McLean, Virginia everyday. And this Senator from Kansas who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee has the audacity to blame CIA for intelligence failures? How can he recognize failures when he does not even understand the very simple basics about people who work undercover at CIA. He should spend more time reading up on the CIA and less time memorizing Ken Mehlman talking points.
Cross-posted at DailyKos.
