If you read Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column today you were as puzzled as I was. A usually thoughtful man was suddenly parroting the Republican talking points most recently uttered by Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison when she called the possibly forthcoming perjury indictments in Plamegate "technicalities."
Times conservative columnist John Tierney's stance on the case today is obviously partisan. Like an army of Manchurian Candidates, a good Republican never utters an ill word against one of their own. Yet here is what centrist Kristof wrote today:
"To me, the whisper campaign against Mr. Wilson amounts to back-stabbing politics, but not to obvious criminality. And if indictments are issued for White House officials on vague charges of revealing classified information, that will have a chilling effect on the reporting of national security issues. The ultimate irony would come if we ended up strengthening the Bush administration's ability to operate in secret."
Bob Novak is the only reporter who outed a CIA agent and he's a reporter as much as I'm Irish. And he didn't even get in trouble for it. The real reporters all knew better so Mr. Kristof what "chilling effect" are you talking about? The possible indictments have nothing to do with the reporters Libby and Rove talked to, but with Libby and Rove themselves. And if they scoot by on the graver charges of outing an agent, how can any thinking person of any political stripe not think it still serious and criminal to lie under oath? At best they lied because they themselves thought what they did was illegal even if proving it beyond a reasonable doubt might be tricky (though fellow HuffPoster David Fiderer makes a great case for it).
No, the real "chilling effect" comes if those in the highest offices in our nation are allowed to subvert our legal system and lie under oath with impunity.