Pesky First Amendment Details

A judge has ruled that Judith ("I'm so important, ask Rummy and Chalabi") Miller of The Times and Matthew Cooper of Time Mag have no 1st Amendment protection against having to answer questions into the CIA/Plamegate leak.

As a journalist myself (and let me be clear that here, as I've said before, I operate not as a journalist but a blogger), this hits me as wrong but with some subtle areas of gray I'll mention momentarily. Why are journalists held to a different standard than Robert Novak, the one who published the outing of Plame, who is a commentator rather than a journalist, or WH officials who've obfuscated, or Jeff Gannon, the so-called journalist/gay male prostitute, questioned in the CIA memo/leak but allowed to continue to lob soft balls at Scottie McClellan and Bush with official WH sanction?

As a citizen who feels that the outing of Plame was so far beyond the pale and done out of spite for what Plame's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had reported about Niger's "yellow cake" debacle, I feel quite differently. I WANT to get to the details of who outed Plame (the truth, as opposed to what the WH spins).

But man does this matter ever have gray areas.

There's the Judith Miller shade of gray in which Miller lied and lied and lied to make this administration's case for war in Iraq. Personally, if a grand jury wants to administer an enema and colonoscopy to her live on the Fox News Network (there's an oxymoron), I'd happily tune in. Miller's advocacy on behalf of the neo-cons and the Bush WH renders her, IMHO, a non journalist. So let her hang.

But re: Cooper, I'm more inclined to feel that he should not have to hang (so to speak) to be forced to tell the truth that no one else will. Journalists are not supposed to be treated (or accept assignments) as intelligence operatives and WH shills.

By having the investigators and courts constantly turn the emphasis and responsibility back to the journalists, I have no doubt they make the Administration happy because it takes the heat off them. Yet heat should very much be on them... and hate-mongerer Bobby Boy Novak, too.

This tactic also works well, I'm sure, in making sure we don't have any brave men or women in the press corps actually do their jobs of questioning what this Administration is doing out of fear they'll be subpoenaed to death and face prison if they don't spill. So instead, we get Jeff Gannons, who take time away from posing for nude cock shots and advertising his services as a male stud for hire, to attend WH press conferences. When he finally gets caught (and remember, it wasn't the press itself who outed him but bloggers), he makes up delusional comments about threats to his family and no journalist asks him to back this up with evidence.

Bottom line: I see this less as a First Amendment issue that a combination of trying to be sure we don't resolve Plamegate, of shutting journalists up, and allowing lies and outings from people like Novak to go unchallenged.