Thursday - June 30, 2005

Constitutional Question

Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine are going to go to jail next week for refusing to reveal the sources for their stories that caused the whole Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame kerfuffle last year (if you haven’t been keeping up with current events, just go Google “plame"). The judge in the case has ordered the two reporters to reveal their sources in order to continue the search for truth in the trial (the “search for truth” is, after all, what justice is supposed to be about, isn’t it?). The two have refused, citing their “Constitutional right”.

To make a long story short, the two reporters are falling back on that old “Freedom Of The Press” lie that reporters don’t have to reveal their sources, according to the Constitution. I want someone to point out to me exactly in which article or amendment this “right” of the press is written down. To listen to the modern press, you’d almost think it came down from the mountain with Moses. Unfortunately, most of the modern press are heathen liberals who don’t believe in anything written in the BIble so that lets Moses off the hook.

In my humble opinion, what good is a so-called “press” or “media” if they don’t have to back up their stories with sources, bibliographies, references, etc. ? They can tell us anything and attribute it to “anonymous sources” or some raincoat-clad, disgruntled, mysterious government employee, code-named “Deep Throat” that they met in the dead of night in a parking garage somewhere. They can even make up crap or plagiarize other reports as Jayson Blair and others in the media have done lately. They can take as Holy Gospel a barely legible, forged document faxed from Kinko’s in Abilene and foist it off on us as “truth” (and then later, refer to it as “fake but accurate").

They have done all this and more .... and they have gotten away with it in the name of “protecting their sources under their First Amendment rights”. Pardon me, but if it smells like bovine feces, looks like bovine feces, tastes like bovine feces .... then it must be BULLSHIT! And the only constructive thing you can do with bullshit is spread it around the roses and let nature take its course.

WASHINGTON, June 29 - With mounting frustration and a hint of anger, a federal judge said at a hearing Wednesday that he would send two reporters to jail in one week if they did not agree to testify before a grand jury about their confidential sources in the meantime.

Lawyers for the reporters, Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, said their clients would accept jail time rather than testify.

The judge, Thomas F. Hogan of Federal District Court here, added that he would also impose very large fines against Time Inc., in an effort to force the company to obey a court order directing it to turn over documents in the investigation.

A lawyer for Time Inc., Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., told Judge Hogan the company was still considering whether to comply with the order.

“We are grappling with those issues,” Mr. Boutrous said. “Time is part of a public company and has a deliberative process to work through these issues.”

The grand jury is looking into the possibly unlawful disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative, Valerie Plame.

Judge Hogan expressed surprise that a public company like Time Warner, Time Inc.’s parent, would even consider violating a final court order. The Supreme Court turned down appeals in the case on Monday.

“The only way we operate in this society, in a democratic society, is by the rule of law and to have people obey court orders,” Judge Hogan said.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the case, said Time has no choice but to comply with the order.

“I don’t understand what Time can deliberate about,” he said. “They don’t have a right to break the law. We shouldn’t allow people to think that court orders are sort of optional.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/30/2005 at 08:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Crime • Media-Bias •  
• Comments (11) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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