Today, Norah O’Donnell guest-hosted an edition of Hardball featuring an interview with New York Times reporter James Risen. Risen is better known as the guy who blew the covert NSA program that intercepted phone calls between people in America and, if the President is to be believed, known al-Qaeda terrorists. If you’re one of those who think that everyone in the Bush administration reflexively lies about everything, then James Risen is a patriot who has exposed the worst abuse of presidential power since Watergate. If you’re more inclined to give the President the benefit of the doubt when it comes to covert operations designed to prevent terrorist attacks, then James Risen’s reporting did an untold amount of damage to what was for all we know an effective way to monitor communications between terrorists abroad and their cells in the United States.
In case you fall into the latter group, the following exchange from tonight’s interview might surprise you:
O’DONNELL: Jim, I have to ask you because there have been some questions raised about the credibility of the New York Times in dealing with this story. The New York Times decided to hold this story for more than a year. You knew about it. You had the reporting down pat all throughout the presidential election. Why was the story held?
RISEN: Well, I’ve agreed with the Times not to get into that…
What Jim is telling Norah is that he entered into a contract with one party not to tell other people about information that was shared between that party and himself. So he is at least familiar with the concept of a non-disclosure agreement. He just doesn’t respect them when other people break theirs. Not his problem.
Just ours.
Video here. Note for good measure O’Donnell’s genuine indignation when she asks the question. It’s almost as if she’s upset that this bombshell didn’t drop in time to factor into the presidential election!