The Sell-Out of the Washington Post

It's nice to think back to a day when an independent press doggedly sought to publish the truth and expose the corruption of our nation's capitol - but it's mostly an illusion. "Insider" press corps members have always shielded the American public from knowledge they didn't think we could digest properly, and shielded government officials from scrutiny of matters they didn't think were the proper concern of the public. Examples include the health issues and philandering of certain presidents. Who knows what other revelations have remained hidden in the buddy-buddy world of Washington?

It's also nice to think that things are improving, and that our press corps has develped a more complete sense of duty since Watergate. Alas, that is also a fanciful illusion.

Take a moment and read this paragraph by the Washington Post's "liberal" Richard Cohen:

With the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald has apparently finished his work, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, to make a mountain out of a molehill. At the urging of the liberal press (especially the New York Times), he was appointed to look into a run-of-the-mill leak and wound up prosecuting not the leaker -- Richard Armitage of the State Department -- but Libby, convicted in the end of lying. This is not an entirely trivial matter since government officials should not lie to grand juries, but neither should they be called to account for practicing the dark art of politics. As with sex or real estate, it is often best to keep the lights off.

If you're not dismayed and disgusted by the prospect of a so-called journalist arguing that the prosecution of Scooter Libby (begun by a criminal complaint filed by the CIA, not the NYT) represent an unwarranted shining of light onto the "dark art of politics", then go here and read Glenn Greenwald's explanation of why you should be.