Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake on U.S. v. Libby
Jane Hamsher of firedoglake.com, February 21, 2007:
Without Plameology, it is likely that the YearlyKos convention would not have happened last year (sidenote: Crablaw is 50-50 likely to attend YearlyKos 2007 in Chicago). For all the talk of the mainstream media being a liberal bastion, it seems to me that the press has bent over backwards to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. I think it's not a left-right issue so much as an insiders' club issue. I have come to perceive more and more while working in DC the strange, clubby environment of Potomac Fever. Georgetown is a university, a 10-block watering hole - AND a remarkably cheerful, extremely expensive and chummy neighborhood where everybody seems to know each other and neighbors become friends with remarkable easy, according to report after report. The neighborhood has subdivisions - the newspaper people live here, the senior lobbyists tend to live on that side of M Street. Alexandria has its own, strange clubby social network. So do McLean and the tonier neighborhoods in Arlington, where single family houses easily top $1 million dollars, more if within 6 blocks of a Metro station. Chevy Chase as well, for even more money.
What DC does not have is a lot of middle-class neighborhoods near the city. A few middle-class strongholds do exist in Northeast near Catholic University and near Eastern Avene in Deanwood. A very substantial majority-black middle-class lives in Prince George's County, but that County is perhaps 1/5 of the metropolitan area and even it has its very wealthy neighborhoods and some substantial poverty, though less than is commonly perceived. But in some cities, middle-class and lower-middle-class life dominate. In Baltimore, that's the case. Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Brooklyn and Queens - you see this. In DC, the concentration of wealth and power is absolutely staggering, especially when you realize that DC is less "showy" than cities like Los Angeles, i.e. the wealth is compiled beneath quiet, tasteful style. A multi-millionaire lobbyist for, say, the pharmaceutical industry is not likely to drive a sports car down K Street; a millionaire Hollywood agent doing similar work for similar money is more likely to show off his wealth.
In this clubbish, genteel Alice-in-Wonderland world a certain psychology sets in. It's not that the politicians get out of touch so much that much of this federal city comes to regard itself as a republic apart. They don't have a voting member in Congress, but who cares; they live down the street from 13 Congressmen so who needs a representative? The traditional news media, the lobbyists, the upper end of the non-profit sector, the upper-level government staffers just below secretary level, the salaried DNC and RNC apparatchiks, Congressmen, Senators and all of their major funders, connectors, contact brokers - they are of a social class and club. The USA?? - why would they want to go traveling in some foreign country like Baltimore or Cleveland?
To understand this world, listen to George Will and Cokie Roberts, read their books and ask yourself who they drink with, and who those people drink with. Then add in David Broder's Rolodex. You get the idea?
So of course it's reasonable to expect that if Vice-President Cheney and Scooter Libby dropped the dime on Valerie Plame to slap and humiliate her and her husband, or lied about hearing it from Russert first, or whatever, the entire Washington culture is likely to take care of this matter as an in-house issue. Not something to be handled by some sawed-off arrogant former mob prosecutor from Chicago. Special U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is not part of their world. Neither are the vulgar, keyboard-punching activists with strange names like "Emptywheel" and "Atrios" and "Majikthise." The contempt dripping from George Will and Cokie Roberts in their various discussions of the blogosphere as a concept - not for specific things said or done by specific bloggers, but its very existence as a hated, hostile phenomenon - is amazing, and deserves a full post in its own right. They have their culture, and they handle things their way. The U.S. Code and the FBI be damned; if the Washington insiders do it, then it is not illegal.
If Libby is convicted, I think the effect on Washington's chummy political culture will be devastating, perhaps far more devastating than it will be for Dick Cheney and President Bush. And bi-partisan long knives will come out for the dirty hippie bloggers like never before. THAT will be the longer legacy of Jane Hamsher and Marcy Wheeler's Plameology blogging.
Jane Hamsher of firedoglake.com, February 21, 2007:
1. The administration lied us into war and tried to abuse its power to punish the whistleblower who told the American public the truth.Of the paragraphs above, it is paragraph 6 that I find most to be both most clearly true and of longest reach. A lot of left bloggers ranging from the beige, staid TalkingPointsMemo.com to the wild and vulgar Jane Hamsher and the less vulgar Marcy Wheeler FireDogLake.com to community centers like DailyKos and its varied progeny to (to a lesser extent) Democratic strategy sites like MyDD.com have gotten a lot of their fuel and developed a lot of their talent out of the Wilson/Plame/Libby saga, and it is fair to say that this story and its galvanizing effect on the left blogosphere have provided the margin of victory in left netroots development.
2. Scooter is the firewall to Shooter.
3. Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and other members of the administration conspired to keep federal investigators from uncovering their crimes.
4. The media was complicit in spreading administration propaganda rather than doing investigative journalism, and are now helping to set the table for a pardon.
5. The journalistic standards that have been exposed in the case (witness Tim Russert, Judy Miller, Andrea Mitchell, Robert Novak and others) are reprehensible, and have undermined the public trust in the media.
6. The degree to which this story about the lies that lead to war has been ignored by the media (relative to the feeding frenzy over [the Clinton/Lewinsky sexual scandal]) left a huge opening that the blogs have filled.
Without Plameology, it is likely that the YearlyKos convention would not have happened last year (sidenote: Crablaw is 50-50 likely to attend YearlyKos 2007 in Chicago). For all the talk of the mainstream media being a liberal bastion, it seems to me that the press has bent over backwards to give Bush the benefit of the doubt. I think it's not a left-right issue so much as an insiders' club issue. I have come to perceive more and more while working in DC the strange, clubby environment of Potomac Fever. Georgetown is a university, a 10-block watering hole - AND a remarkably cheerful, extremely expensive and chummy neighborhood where everybody seems to know each other and neighbors become friends with remarkable easy, according to report after report. The neighborhood has subdivisions - the newspaper people live here, the senior lobbyists tend to live on that side of M Street. Alexandria has its own, strange clubby social network. So do McLean and the tonier neighborhoods in Arlington, where single family houses easily top $1 million dollars, more if within 6 blocks of a Metro station. Chevy Chase as well, for even more money.
What DC does not have is a lot of middle-class neighborhoods near the city. A few middle-class strongholds do exist in Northeast near Catholic University and near Eastern Avene in Deanwood. A very substantial majority-black middle-class lives in Prince George's County, but that County is perhaps 1/5 of the metropolitan area and even it has its very wealthy neighborhoods and some substantial poverty, though less than is commonly perceived. But in some cities, middle-class and lower-middle-class life dominate. In Baltimore, that's the case. Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Brooklyn and Queens - you see this. In DC, the concentration of wealth and power is absolutely staggering, especially when you realize that DC is less "showy" than cities like Los Angeles, i.e. the wealth is compiled beneath quiet, tasteful style. A multi-millionaire lobbyist for, say, the pharmaceutical industry is not likely to drive a sports car down K Street; a millionaire Hollywood agent doing similar work for similar money is more likely to show off his wealth.
In this clubbish, genteel Alice-in-Wonderland world a certain psychology sets in. It's not that the politicians get out of touch so much that much of this federal city comes to regard itself as a republic apart. They don't have a voting member in Congress, but who cares; they live down the street from 13 Congressmen so who needs a representative? The traditional news media, the lobbyists, the upper end of the non-profit sector, the upper-level government staffers just below secretary level, the salaried DNC and RNC apparatchiks, Congressmen, Senators and all of their major funders, connectors, contact brokers - they are of a social class and club. The USA?? - why would they want to go traveling in some foreign country like Baltimore or Cleveland?
To understand this world, listen to George Will and Cokie Roberts, read their books and ask yourself who they drink with, and who those people drink with. Then add in David Broder's Rolodex. You get the idea?
So of course it's reasonable to expect that if Vice-President Cheney and Scooter Libby dropped the dime on Valerie Plame to slap and humiliate her and her husband, or lied about hearing it from Russert first, or whatever, the entire Washington culture is likely to take care of this matter as an in-house issue. Not something to be handled by some sawed-off arrogant former mob prosecutor from Chicago. Special U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is not part of their world. Neither are the vulgar, keyboard-punching activists with strange names like "Emptywheel" and "Atrios" and "Majikthise." The contempt dripping from George Will and Cokie Roberts in their various discussions of the blogosphere as a concept - not for specific things said or done by specific bloggers, but its very existence as a hated, hostile phenomenon - is amazing, and deserves a full post in its own right. They have their culture, and they handle things their way. The U.S. Code and the FBI be damned; if the Washington insiders do it, then it is not illegal.
If Libby is convicted, I think the effect on Washington's chummy political culture will be devastating, perhaps far more devastating than it will be for Dick Cheney and President Bush. And bi-partisan long knives will come out for the dirty hippie bloggers like never before. THAT will be the longer legacy of Jane Hamsher and Marcy Wheeler's Plameology blogging.
Labels: Libby, meta - blogging
2 comments:
http://www.crablaw.com/2007/02/jane-hamsher-of-firedoglake-on-us-v.html is the actual proper link to the author of this post.
Thanks.
Oops. Thanks.
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