Hilarious. At about 5:40 PM on Tuesday evening and there’s a back and forth with Peter Beinart and Deborah Perry from the Independent Women’s Forum arguing about the O’Neill stuff on CNN.
Beinart raised the quite apt point that members of the Bush administration gave Bob Woodward classified documents for his highly flattering book about the lead-up to the war (did I mention it was highly flattering?). So why wasn’t there an investigation then?
Deborah responded that this was a case “where the Bush administration was working with” the reporter. (That’s what I caught by ear and remembered for the few moments it took me to put the dog down and grab the computer.) In other words, when it’s a compulsively friendly reporter who’s working with the White House on an adoring book, then they can give out classified documents at their discretion. But when it’s unfriendly, you go to the slammer!
(Late Update: Here’s the actual quote from the transcript: “But, again, that was the Bush administration working with Bob Woodward in terms of what they were willing to…”)
Deborah, I want to thank you on behalf of all of us for that unwitting moment of candor! I’d like to encourage you to also defend the White House on the Plame matter.
(We can leave aside for the moment that there’s no reason to believe the O’Neill docs were actually classified. The classification system is a little more formalized and complex then just putting ‘secret’ across the top of a document.)
