Well, it’s started. Michael Barone has begun the rewriting of history. In one of the most dishonest columns I’ve seen in a long time, he attempts to deconstruct all the parallels between Vietnam and Watergate, and Iraq, Plamegate, and the NSA scandal.
In the process, he manages to blame the mainstream press for overcovering the criminal acts of Karl Rove while exonerating Rove of any crimes.
Specific to Plame, Barone makes two false claims.
Still, it was clear early on that the likelihood that Mr. Rove violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was near zero. Under the law, the agent whose name was disclosed would have had to have served overseas within the preceding five years (Valerie Plame, according to her husband’s book, had been stationed in the U.S. since 1997), and Mr. Rove would have had to know that she was undercover (not very likely).
The law says a covert agent is one “who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States….” Apparently, Michael Barone cannot read. The ‘or’ is kind of clear, isn’t it? Valerie served overseas within the five year window, she just did not live overseas in the period. Barone is not a dunce, he’s a paid liar. That’s pretty clear from his second distortion. He says that it was not very likely that Rove knew Plame was undercover. I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
We get to the heart of Barone’s authoritarian worldview here:
Journalists in the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s tended to believe they had a duty to buttress Americans’ faith in their leaders and their government. Journalists since Vietnam and Watergate have tended to believe that they have a duty to undermine such faith, especially when the wrong party is in office.
I’ve written endlessly about the 1970’s during the Plame and NSA affairs precisely because the press has reverted to its prior form and so has the government. Washington reporters think the the blogosphere is undermining America’s faith in their institutions (the government and the press). They’re wringing their hands about it. I heard it first hand, from more than one reporter, in DC this week. We used to trust our institutions until we learned they were bugging our leaders, opening our mail, breaking into our psychiatrists offices, infiltrating our organizations and instigating violence, and lying about the reasons for and progress of a war. We trusted our papers until we realized they were deeply penetrated and compromised by the CIA. We tried to pass laws to give ourselves a renewed confidence in our institutions. And they have failed us again. Badly. At great cost in blood and treasure. Michael Barone is not a patriot. He is part of the problem. No amount of lies and distortions can give us back a sense of legitimacy in our press and our government. Only a long record of honest, competent, and legal performance can do that. We are not undermining the Establishment. We’re just documenting the atrocities.
