Russert Dodges
Published by Mike Stark May 23rd, 2006 in Sean Hannity, UncategorizedI wish I coulda done to Russert what he does to his democratic guests…
Anyway, he was on with Hannity today - where he invited callers to call in and play “Beat the Press” - and I had the chance to ask the following:
“What canon of journalist ethics allowed you to report on the Valerie Plame leak story for months without disclosing your personal role in the events? How can we trust NBC after that? Would your dad have tolerated you not telling him the whole story?”
Russert said I was entitled to my own opinion, but not my own facts - saying that he had disclosed his role. That was true - but false at the same time. Russert knew that I was speaking of the time period preceding his subpeona… He did plenty of reporting and discussing on NBC in that period. Russert twisted the factual terrain around to make it sound like I was talking about the period after his subpeona… If I was deposing him, he woulda been crucified for fucking with me like that… Instead, he sat safely on the other side of a deadened phone line.
That’s our media, folks.
[UPDATE] After listening to the clip again, maybe it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. I’m gonna hafta let more seasoned Plamologists dissect his statement at the end - that “all I ever got was a complaint from Scooter Libby about a tv show”.
if that is true, then maybe Russert really didn’t have any role. I could see a sequence of events in which
1) Libby and/or Rove said they got Plame’s name from Russert,
2) Fitz subpeonaed Russert to check the story out (and there would be no conflict here because Russert didn’t have any conversations he was duty bound to keep off the record)
3) Russert siys WTF? I don’t know anything - I never had any conversations with these guys about Plame - I never even heard her name until Novak’s column came out
If this is implausible, please let me know why so I can update further…
4 Responses to “Russert Dodges”
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its hard to know for sure, but i dont think russert had anything to do with the outing of plame. libby said he first heard of plame’s status at the cia from russert, not from cheney, and that further, “all the journalists know”. this seems to me ridiculous, and i think libby is just covering for cheney here. especially since recently cheney’s personal notes in the margin of joseph wilson’s column “what i didnt find in africa” were released, showing that cheney was very interested in whether plame had been behind wilson being sent to niger.
woodward reported on the plame scandal without revealing his personal involvement (which i dont think he denies), so perhaps thats what you were thinking of.
It’s really unknown what Russert’s involvement was in the Plame outing, but it is clear that he went before the grand jury. Unfortunately, he refuses to even comment on what he was asked about (my understanding is that witnesses are not sworn to secrecy), and of course the grand jury cannot comment on these things.
Come on, you’re going after Russert now? I think this call may have been a bit early, we still need to get all the facts. Otherwise I love to hear you going at it with Hannity.
A good question to ask Russert or any reporter paid by NBC is why they don’t disclose that GE has billions of dollars in contracts with the Department of Defense every time they report on the war. They should have to disclose that liason every time they report on the war.