The Aptly-Named "Dick" Cohen

Bloggers who are good at this have been all over this one today (to twist Oscar Wilde a bit, and he reportedly liked that, "work is the curse of the blogging class"), but you really should look at an op-ed piece by Richard Cohen in the Washington Post. Dick gives us this gem:

"The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals. As it is, all he has done so far is send Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail and repeatedly haul this or that administration high official before a grand jury, investigating a crime that probably wasn't one in the first place but that now, as is often the case, might have metastasized into some sort of coverup -- but, again, of nothing much. Go home, Pat." He concludes that the Valerie Plame affair was no more "than what Washington does day in and day out."

I think we see some of the reason that Dick is unhappy, when he cries that "I have no idea what Fitzgerald will do...My own diligent efforts to find out anything have come to naught. Fitzgerald's non-speaking spokesman would not even tell me if his boss is authorized to issue a report."

Mommy! Pat won't play with me, make him stop! Dick is angry about being rendered irrelevant on this one.

But beyond pampered, privileged petulance, this one shows ever so clearly that Dick just doesn't get it: "This -- this creepy silence -- will be the consequence of dusting off rarely used statutes to still the tongues of leakers and intimidate the press in its pursuit of truth, fame and choice restaurant tables. Apres Miller comes moi ."

No, Dick. No. This has nothing to do with the free flow of information, a vigilant and independent press or the public's right to know. This case is first and foremost about a CRIME, a very real and cognizable crime. Beyond that, though, it is about whether government officials are above the law. We have before us the very real possibility that senior members of this administration actively conspired to keep the truth about perhaps the most momentous decision a nation can make, the decision to go to war. They were not trying to intimidate YOU, Dickie, they were trying to intimidate US with the "cross us and we will crush you" message.

I like the notion, though, of "the press in its pursuit of truth." You should try that some time.