Conservative Pundits Are Losing Their Mind Over Plamegate

For years, conservatives have been claiming that they are distinctive in their singular committment to principle and the rule of law compared to convictionless Democrats who care only about results and demonstrating loyalty to interest groups.  This was always more of a political strategy than an argument grounded in reality, but the things conservatives are saying about Plamegate has now put the lie to this line of thinking once and for all. 

Take for example, John Tierney's column in the New York Times on October 16 where he asks "where is the crime?"  and expresses outrage that special prosecutor Peter Fitzgerald would even contemplate bringing an indictment under the Espionage Act, which prohibits the release of classified information to anyone not authorized to receive it. 

Tierney seems more than willing to take an eraser to the Espionage Act on the grounds that "a prosecutor could indict just about anyone inside or outside government who deals with defense or foreign-policy information that could harm the U.S."  Oh really?   The Bush Administration is constantly basing their refusals to provide information to Congress and the public on the grounds that it is classified and its release would harm the national security.  Now, when top White House officials have released classified information because it suited their interests, the law doesn't apply?

Thousands of civil servants sign non-disclosure forms clearly stating that their release of classified information could cost them their jobs and land them in jail.  Where on those forms -- which the Bush Administration has made tougher and more threatening since 9/11 -- does it say "never mind, we don't really mean it"?  And since when do columnists decide which federal laws ought to be enforced and which should not.  Oh, of course, the Espionage Act shouldn't be enforced, according to Tierney since, "the law could apply to reporters" -- heaven forbid. 

As ludicrous as these arguments are, one wonders where the consistent, principled Tierney was when Sandy Berger faced criminal charges for carrying classified information home and carelessly losing it.  Unlike Plamegate, as least with Berger there was no evidence that the information fell into the hands of people not authorized to receive it.  I also must have missed Tierney's column chastizing the government for stripping former CIA Director John Deutsch's security clearance after he improperly stored classified information on his insecure home laptop. 

Tierney also has a new found agitation about runaway special prosecutors, a job which "turn a reasonable lawyer into an inquistor with the zeal of Captain Ahab."  Apparently, the gripe with Fitzgerald is that he had the audacity to consider charges for leaking classified information in a case that started out being about whether a CIA agent's name had been improperly revealed, charges that while technically different, at least relate to the same set of events.  I seem to have a fuzzy memory of a special prosecutor who started out investigating a bad real estate transaction but ended up looking into sex in the White House.  Tierney explains that "perjury, of course was the charge that Ken Starr accurately pinned on Bill Clinton" but "the public didn't buy it."   A "real crime," he claims, "is what happens before the investigation starts." 

Republican former prosecutor Joseph DiGenova has a different, far more principled view of the law.  If a prosecutor uncovers strong evidence of perjury or obstruction of justice in the course of an investigation, DiGenova argued this weekend, fealty to the law and protecting of the intergrity of the process "demands" that an indictment be returned.