As the Plame affair rolls forward, we are seeing an interesting split in the blogosphere — unsurprisingly, along liberal/conservative lines. You can find almost round-the-clock updates and thoughtful commentary from Josh Marshall (the independent journalist) and Brad DeLong (the economist and former D.C. insider). DeLong leads the way in reminding us that this story first broke over the summer, that Bush had many weeks to pursue this, and in fact, rather than being eager to find out who leaked Plame’s CIA status, he has done nothing to find that out, and instead waited until the CIA forced his hand:
The White House has had eleven weeks to act, and has not done this. The cover-up is already eleven weeks ongoing, with the Bush White House hoping first that the CIA could be pressured into not making a criminal referral to the Justice Department, with the White House now hoping that somehow the Justice Department will make the thing go away, and with George W. Bush having “no plans” to ask any of his aides whether they are the ones who think it’s cool to blow the cover of CIA operatives actually trying to find weapons of mass destruction. It’s not just the two principals, by now it is virtually the entire White House staff who are accessories after the fact to a plan to aid and abet our enemies, et cetera. |
A lot of people find this story dramatic and important. On the other hand, you have normally astute conservative bloggers like Glenn Reynolds and Eugene Volokh admitting that they just can’t get excited about it and will not be posting much on the subject. Ed Cone chastises them for this. To me it seems to be entirely their their right. Still, the story isn’t going to go away, and ignoring it isn’t going to make it irrelevant — it might instead make them (bloggers who ignore the story) less relevant. Time will tell.
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