Outing an undercover CIA agent is a major national security crime that dwarfs the third class burglary we know as the Watergate scandal. So, you would think that every mass media journalist would be chomping at the bit to locate a ‘deep throat’. Just think of the movie rights and contact Robert Redford with an early draft of the screenplay.
In the spirit of giving aid and comfort to the intellectually challenged scribes who toil for the mass media barons, I have a few hints.
First Hint. There are a few actors in this sordid affair walking around with huge blinking billboard signs that read ‘DEEP THROAT SUSPECT’. The biggest billboard is dangling around a no-neck journalist named Novak. The second billboard is hanging around a yet unnamed anonymous leaker who informed the Washington Post that two senior administration officials had revealed the identity of the CIA agent to six prominent journalists. Who wrote that Washington Post Article?
One of the ‘prominent’ six has been identified as Andrea Mitchell, wife of Allan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman, and the 1996 American Enterprise Institute recipient of the Francis Boyer Award. Novak was the only one to aid the two unidentified felons. So, why don’t the other five ‘prominent’ journalists come forward and identify themselves? No further harm can come to the CIA agent who has already been exposed. Or would the public disclosure of the other four journalists embarrass the media powers that rule the state?
Hint 2. What was the motive behind the leak? Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia recently said that ‘they go after the people they don’t like. Wilson is a good example of that.’ Could the good Senator be more specific about who ‘they’ are? Who would want revenge against Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV? Is he referring to the Likudnik war party, the American Enterprise Institute’s ‘experts’ who have come to dominate the Bush Pentagon and State Department? For a complete list of suspects consider the Iraq war architects starting with Richard Perle, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Libby, Elliot Abrams and Douglas Feith. Figure out the other fifteen on your own or consult Justin Raimondo’s excellent articles on the operatives of the Likudnik war party. His well-documented exposes can be found on Antiwar.com. Also consider consulting the work of Charley Reese, Patrick Buchanan, Jim Lobe, Robert Fisk and Alexander Cockburn.
Hint 3. Why were the six journalists who were privy to the leak considered ‘safe’? The American Enterprise Institute folks gloat over their media connections. They actually list the ‘prominent’ journalist associated with their ‘neo-conservative’ Likudnik agenda. On their web page, AEI boasts that their ‘standing in the national media is unmatched by any other policy research institute. The work of AEI scholars is cited more frequently and is published far more often in the leading U.S. newspapers and news magazines than the work of scholars at other national think tanks. Similarly, AEI scholars appear more often on television than their peers at rival research institutes.’
Roll the drums for the prime suspects. Well, the two felons in question obviously targeted big names like Novak of CNN and Andrea Mitchell of NBC. Who was their contact for FOX, the War Party’s favorite network? My guess is either Fred Barnes or Morton Kondraeke, both hard-core neo-cons. For the Washington Post, I nominate Charles Krauthammer, the dean of the Israel Firsters who will be receiving the AEI’s Irving Kristol Award for 2004. Add to the list AEI’s resident fellow David Frum who writes for the Weekly Standard. CNN’s William Schneider, a senior political analyst is also an AEI Resident Scholar. Anyone at the Wall Street Journal would have been an ideal candidate since they only hire neo-cons.
I would also add to this list Judith Miller and William Safire, both of the New York Times. Safire is so Likudnik that he openly gloats about ghost writing speeches for Ariel Sharon. Judith Miller is the ‘journalist’ who used Chalabi as an ‘intelligence source’, knowing full well that he was an Iraqi ‘opposition’ creature who was a protégé of Wolfowitz and Perle. She is Sulzberger’s ‘expert’ on the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. The intelligence community used her articles as ‘sources’ for their findings.
Hint four: The President boasted in a February speech to the American Enterprise Institute that he had hired twenty of their ‘experts’ and placed them in senior positions in the Pentagon and State Department. Powell has the list. Rumsfeld has long been associated with this Likudnik lobby, as has Cheney, whose wife still gets a W-2 from the AEI. Have any of them asked their senior staff to take an oath denying being one of the felons? What did the Vice President know and when did he cover it up?
Hint five: In the interest of saving precious taxpayer funds, why does Bush not demand an oath from senior administration officials denying involvement in the leak? How about lie detector tests? Clinton did exactly that on a security leak that did not even endanger the life of any member of the intelligence community. Why doesn’t Bush, our ‘national security president’, follow Clinton’s example?
Hint Six: Read Richard Perle’s ‘The Art of the Leak’. Given Perle’s intimate knowledge of the anatomy of a White House leak, why does he not use his connections to assist in unmasking the culprits?
Hint Seven: The Vice President and his wife are intimately associated with the American Enterprise Institute. Since so many of his Likudnik pals are well placed in the administration, why can’t they get together and help narrow the list of suspects? Surely this ‘cabal of experts’ is working hard to track down these felons.
Hint eight: Is this a plausible Bush strategy? Have Ashcroft stretch out the investigation until after the election. As a distraction, have their willing media enablers focus on a very unlikely suspect, Karl Rove. Keep denying it is Rove. Convict the real culprits after the election. Pardon them on the last day of the second term in office, along with Jonathan Pollard. Libby (Mark Rich’s lawyer) and Elliot Abrams are well acquainted with this ‘last day’ pardon scenario.
Hint Nine: Why is Rupert Murdoch and his crowd so intent on killing this story? They seem to be very aggressive in diminishing the importance of this investigation? Is it because three or four of the six suspect journalists are consultants for FOX or work for Murdoch’s Weekly Standard?
Hint Ten: Why are other mass media titans actively working to fog up the obvious leads? What do they have to hide about the ‘art of the leak’? How come so many of them are avoiding the last nine hints? Are they all the President’s men? One would think that the folks at FOX would wrap themselves up in the flag and take pot shots at CNN’s treason. Instead, they are making every effort to minimize the impact of the story.
One last word. If any journalist in Washington, Crawford or Peoria ends up getting a book deal or a Redford movie by following these hints, I would like him to consider making a significant contribution to Antiwar.com, CounterPunch.org, Commondreams.org and other alternative media outlets. They were all valuable sources for much of the information in this article.
