I don’t think anyone – not even David Corn – would accuse longtime Washington Post columnist David Broder of being a Republican, a conservative, a fan of this administration, a lackey, a liar or an enemy of all progressive humanity.
His column today is on the Eternal Plame Brouhaha. Bottom line:
[W]e now know that the original “leak,” in casual conversations with reporters Novak and Bob Woodward, came not from the conspiracy theorists’ target in the White House but from the deputy secretary of state at the time, Richard Armitage, an esteemed member of the Washington establishment and no pal of Rove or President Bush. …
Newsweek, in a July 25, 2005, cover story on Rove, after dutifully noting that Rove’s lawyer said the prosecutor had told him that Rove was not a target of the investigation, added: “But this isn’t just about the Facts, it’s about what Rove’s foes regard as a higher Truth: That he is a one-man epicenter of a narrative of Evil.”
And in the American Prospect’s cover story for August 2005, Joe Conason wrote that Rove “is a powerful bully. Fear of retribution has stifled those who might have revealed his secrets. He has enjoyed the impunity of a malefactor who could always claim, however implausibly, deniability — until now.”
These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.