"A Good Leak," "Thoroughly Debunked"

By: Hillary Profita
Topics: 4th Estate Debate

Sunday's Washington Post provided fuel for one controversy that kept critics pretty busy on Monday. E&P's Greg Mitchell, for one, was none too pleased with an editorial that referred to Scooter Libby's 2003 disclosure to reporters as "The Good Leak," which appeared in the same edition as a news article that "thoroughly debunked the notion." Mitchell writes:

The editorial page, a co-producer and then staunch defender of the war in Iraq, declared in a headline on Sunday that the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) info "Scooter" Libby gave to reporters in 2003 was in reality "A Good Leak." The White House was not out to punish Ambassador Joe Wilson for raising doubts about pre-war intelligence; in fact, Wilson is the bad guy in this story for making false claims. Bush, in a sense, is the hero, for instantly declassifying the key NIE document--he was only out to inform the public. Now the poor guy, the Post complains, is the target of "hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy" from the Democrats.

The Post editorial concludes, "It's unfortunate that those who seek to prove" that grounds for the war were bogus "now claim that Mr. Bush did something wrong by releasing for public review some of the intelligence he used in making his most momentous decision."

As often the case in Post editorials related to Iraq, reporting in the newspaper proves that much of the above is pure hogwash. This reality checking usually doesn't happen the very same day, however.

He wasn't the only one who thought so, as demonstrated in Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz's friendly online chat yesterday afternoon, which was chock full of questions about the issue:

Washington, D.C.: Yes, we all know; the news and editorial divisions of The Post are separate. But yesterday's "A Good Leak" editorial, written in blatant disregard of undisputed facts reported in The Post and elsewhere, can't help but damage the whole paper's reputation. What is behind this madness?

Howard Kurtz: Again, I'll let Fred Hiatt and company defend themselves on controversial editorials. But it does underscore the church-and-state division around here, since I don't think anyone would suggest that The Post's news coverage has treated this as a "good leak."

The debunkage continued in the blogosphere – some more aggressively than others. At Firedoglake: "The new Washington Post editorial, an enormous turd that editorial page editor Fred Hiatt no doubt wrote, is such an unmitigated piece of BushCo. propaganda, such a giant bag of [expletive] it deserves to be taken apart, piece by piece and beaten into the ground."The post goes on to refer to the paper as "just a few shades less reliable than Pravda." Let's hope Hiatt comes to his next live online chat with a healthy dose of self-confidence.