Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper for the second time was found in contempt of court in the Valerie Plame investigation and was ordered jailed for as long as 18 months by a federal judge yesterday, the Washington Post reports.
Let’s see if we have this straight.
- A federal prosecutor is investigating the administration to determine if anyone broke the law by leaking the identity of CIA operative Plame.
- Long time right-wing mouthpiece Robert Novak printed the leak in his column.
- Time reporter Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who didn’t even write a story about Plame, are subsequently sentenced to jail time.
Right.
We think it would take a really twisted crystal ball to find any logic behind this one.
Frank Rich of The New York Times thinks “the current White House has been practicing pre-emptive media intimidation to match its policy of pre-emptive war.”
He compares the Bush administration to that of Richard Nixon when “an arrogant and secretive White House, furious at the bad press fueled by an unpopular and mismanaged war, was still flying high as it kneecapped with impunity any reporter or news organization that challenged its tightly enforced message of victory at hand.”
Read his column here.