Bill Safire just loves a good crook

According to Nixon's apologist Bill Safire:

3. On judges jailing journalists for refusing to reveal sources: Mainstream media have good reason to be angry about being unfairly jumped on, and no reason to be depressed and docile for fear of seeming self-interested. If the press can't promise sources that we won't rat on them, coverage would cease to be robust and uninhibited; government and corporate corruption would go unreported.

Ummm, so Bob Novak (bought-for-and-paid-RNC-hack) might have to fess up to which maladministration flack had told him to out a CIA secret agent who was trying to find and neutralize nuclear weapons programs??? I'd say that clamming up about who did what in the maladministration is the opposite of "robust and uninhibited" reporting. Shame on him. I say lock the criminal bastard up. This has nothing to do with journalistic confidentiality and fair play for whistleblowers unless you are of the hallucinatory impression that Novak thought that carrying the maladministration's water for them was in some sense "whistleblowing". . . . Of course, any sane person would say that Novak, desperately trying to protect the maladministration, was in fact a flack for Dubya, and that this is the very kind of information (cozy arrangements between the maladministration and friendly "journalists") that ought to be brought to light.

And Safire's columns on the WoMD (continuing, strangely enough, into this year and bizarrely insisting that there were WoMD despite even the maladministration's officially ending the search) puts Safire into the same Swift boat of behind-the-scenes "spinners" for the maladministration.

It's not "self-interest" that's behind Safire's and Novak's machinations for the maladministration. . . . Ummm, unless they're getting paid "under the table", perhaps? Say, Bill and Bob, was Armstrong Williams talking about you when he said he wasn't the only one on the take?

But why should mainstream media be alone in resisting this nationwide judicial assault on the people's right to know wrongdoing? . . .

Huh??? The "wrongdoing" here is the outing of Valerie Plame. What's this "judicial assault on the people's right to know wrongdoing"? Ms. Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, tried to tell us about the maladministration's incompetence and mistakes (see also above concerning Safire's continuing denial on the falsity of the WoMD claims). The Republicans have been doing their damnedest since then to try to discredit Mr. Wilson (and that was why they outed Ms. Plame).

. . . Where is the legal profession, which should not only see danger in an unrestrained judiciary, but would be next in line to lose much of its own privilege of confidentiality with clients? Where are consumer groups, often reliant on whistleblower revelations in newspapers? And where are the preachers who may be threatened with contempt of court for not testifying about penitents engaged in peculation?

Hate to say it, Bill, but it's the maladministration that has decided that the government should be allowed to listen to the conversations of a suspect and their lawyer. And they didn't base this on some 'extension' of any supposed encroachment on journalistic confidentiality to attorney-client privilege cases. And it was Ken Starr that asked a half decade ago, at the behest of the Republicans, to breach ACP for Vince Foster's lawyer, but who was fortunately slapped down for this by the U.S. Supreme Court (one of my two letters to the editor published by the New York Times was on this subject).

4. On mainstream media's feeling that President Bush doesn't give a hoot about what we say or write: That's his loss more than ours. . . .

Nope, Bill, it's our loss. When he's the chief executive of the United States, and he refuses to listen to any bad words, it's our problem.

. . . He may deliver an uplifting second Inaugural Address, but still does not appear thoughtful or adept at answering questions.

Ayep. And what do you deduce from that, Dr. Watson?

The reason: Bush holds quarterly, rather than the traditional monthly, news conferences. This lack of regular rehearsal costs him familiarity with issues, and costs his administration the discipline of deadlines for suggested answers. As the debates showed, Bush gets better with practice. He is not as good as he thinks he is when winging it.

Still shilling for the Doofus-In-Chief, eh, Bill? He's just "out of practice", is that it? If so, why don't you suggest he "practice" some more? Wouldn't that be the appropriate response? ... unless you really don't believe this yourself, Bill. . . . You're right, he's pathetic when "winging it". What that means is that he can occasionally read speeches that others (such as yourself, Bill) might craft for him that at least have superficial structure and consistency (even if factually inaccurate), but that when he's trying to think on his own, he shows the true nature of his intellectual capacity. Has nothing to do with practice, Bill. And you know that. But you're just a fundamentally dishonest sort.