All Blog Posts from Public Eye

There was uprising in the streets of Blogistan last week when news broke out that Newsweek had handed over some weekly space to blogger-slash-bullseye Markos Moulitsas and Bush’s Former Brain Karl Rove.

All Hail Kos! Or The Return of Rove! The responses varied from blood in the water to ho-hum to “what have we come to.”

In an online column – featuring a salty expletive, I gotta warn you – Columbia Journalism Review prognosticated:

A prediction: Meacham will succeed in getting Moulitsas and Rove’s articles linked on plenty of political blogs, and that will allow Newsweek to claim success, But I would be shocked if either one writes anything that isn’t utterly predictable or that falls outside the narrow realm of the worlds inhabited by their ideological fellow-travelers.

And Jeff Bercovici at Portfolio shrugged:

Is that what it's about? Balance? So you have a liberal shouting on one side, and a conservative shouting on the other side, and if their voices exactly cancel each other out, you've done your job? That sounds like Crossfire, or like the obligatory post-debate spin room, not like a magazine with an outsize regard for its own reputation.

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It's not quite "Moore Vs. Gupta" – the TV "event" of a debate over health care between Michael Moore and CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta from earlier this summer – but we've had another War of Words in MediaLand going on for more than a week now: Karl Rove versus Bill Moyers.

It all began with Moyers' editorial-slash-political obituary of Karl Rove in the wake of Rove's departure from the White House. Moyers made the case that Rove focused a lot of energy on values voters, to Bush's political advantage. It's an innocuous statement, given that Rove reportedly had admitted this to myriad reporters. But what drew people's attention was one line of Moyers' in particular.

At his press conference this week he asked God to bless the president and the country, even as reports were circulating that he himself had confessed to friends his own agnosticism; he wished he could believe, but he cannot.

A few days later, Rove was asked about these comments on "Fox News Sunday." He responded pointedly:

I'm a Christian. I go to church. I'm an Episcopalian. I think he may have taken a comment that I made where I was talking about how — I have had colleagues at the White House — Mike Gerson, Pete Wehner, Lindsey Drouin, Josh Bolten and others — who I'm really impressed about how their faith has informed their lives and made them really better people…

You know, Mr. Moyers ought to do a little bit better research before he does another drive-by slander.

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It's Thursday, and that means it's time for the Public Eye Chat. This week's subject is CBS News White House Correspondent Bill Plante, who caused a stir at Karl Rove’s farewell press conference when he asked President Bush “If he’s so smart, why did you lose Congress?”

Matthew Felling: Interesting week. Anything surprise you?

Bill Plante: Nothing much, actually. Anytime you challenge or appear to challenge the president – and I don’t care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat – there are people who will take issue with it and tell you it’s inappropriate. And you kind of expect that. I knew that what I did on Monday was smart-assed, but I think that that’s beside the point.

Our asking questions should not be dependent on what the White House thinks the mood or the tone of an event should be. And the fact that they say ‘no questions’ or don’t allow time for questions really has nothing to do with it. They don’t have to answer, but I think we need to preserve and aggressively push our right to ask.

Matthew Felling: This week, you asked a question, it got uploaded on the web, it got broadcast everywhere. Did you see any increased polarization or partisanship in the responses you received?

Bill Plante: Yes, the response was instant because of the Internet. In this case, my question got put up on DCFishbowl and then on Drudge, so then it spread like wildfire. That’s no surprise, since there are people that monitor those sites and others everyday.

When I did this 20 years ago in the Rose Garden, I yelled a question at Ronald Reagan at the ‘Teacher of the Year’ event as he was leaving and going inside. Several of the teachers complained and said I disrupted things and that it was inappropriate. In that case, I got a few phone calls but then had to wait for the angry letters to come in. Then after that, I wrote a Washington Post Outlook piece about questioning the president. It took more than a week to play out.

But in this case, it was instantaneous, of course. But I know that’s how things happen these days.

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One of the accidental subplots to Karl Rove’s departure yesterday was a question directed to President Bush by CBS White House correspondent Bill Plante at Rove's farewell press event. His question was picked up by a DC media blog and generated many responses. So we asked Bill for his side of the story, which follows.

As the President and Karl Rove walked away from the lectern after their emotional announcement of Rove’s resignation, I yelled a question.

“If he’s so smart, why did you lose Congress?”

The President, as usual, didn’t answer.

That’s OK – he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to.

But judging by some of the reaction, you’d think I had been shouting obscenities in church!

“Unprofessional;” “Inappropriate;” “Unbecoming;” “Doesn’t show much class;” “you are a total idiot;” “Shill for the liberal Democrats.”

People who sympathize with the President – no matter who the President happens to be – always seem to think it’s impolite to yell questions. Or they argue that the question is inappropriate at the moment. That may sometimes be true, but not [this time].

Rove has been a controversial figure in this administration, the man most often credited or blamed with framing support for the war by politicizing terrorism.

There was no time to frame that question because the event this morning was a statement, not a news conference. So I asked a more direct one. I thought it unlikely that they would answer, but it’s always worth a try.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been blasted for yelling. Twenty or so years ago, I yelled a question at President Reagan as he left the Rose Garden after the annual Teacher of the Year ceremony.

One woman wrote to tell me that I was a guest in the President’s house and ought to be behave as one.

Ten years ago, I asked President Clinton a question which brought a red-faced angry response.

The point is that reporters are not here as guests. We’re here to ask questions.

Why?

Because if we were ever to agree to “behave,” we’d be walking away from our First Amendment role – and then we really would be the shills we’re so often accused of being.

For reporters covering the CIA leak probe, the other shoe dropped today with news that White House aide Karl Rove would not be indicted. No shoes were dropped yesterday, however, during another pre-trial hearing on the Scooter Libby case – one of several that have taken place since the former vice president’s aide was indicted. Covering the Libby case generally entails “mostly a lot of dull moments” and a few very exciting ones, says CBS News Producer Beverley Lumpkin, who told me a little bit about what it's been like covering the case so far. “Despite the yammering and bloviating of several bloggers over the past several days, no news was committed” at yesterday’s hearing, Lumpkin wrote in an e-mail.

Much of the content from yesterday's hearing was likely only of interest to those journalists who are familiar with the most arcane of legal procedures, Lumpkin said -- and there aren't too many of those. The issues discussed were simply “much too inside,” said Lumpkin. “They’re not the kind of thing anyone will run off and file a report on.” While yesterday’s hearing didn’t make news, “it’s still important to know what’s going on,” said Lumpkin.

Indeed, yesterday’s hearing offered at least some indication that something newsworthy might be happening in the near future. Lumpkin described this series of events in an e-mail following the hearing:

After the Libby hearing there was some mystery as Fitzgerald was led away down hallways and through secret locked doors by the administrative assistant to Chief Judge Thomas Hogan. Three intrepid reporters followed along and soon determined the two had disappeared behind a door that leads to both a private dining room for the judges, and a back stairwell that goes both up to the judges' chambers and down to the parking garage. So maybe Fitzgerald was being taken to lunch? Or shown how to get to the garage without being further accosted by unruly reporters? Or was he being led upstairs to have a secret meeting with the Chief Judge? That possibility is potentially newsworthy, because the Chief Judge oversees all grand jury matters. Was Fitzgerald giving the Chief Judge a status report on Rove? Alas, the administrative assistant refused any comment afterwards.

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Has Karl Rove been indicted? That was the big rumor sweeping the Web over the weekend, courtesy of a report on the liberal Web site Truthout.org. On Saturday, Jason Leopold reported on the site that President Bush’s political architect had been informed of a pending indictment:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

The day before, Leopold reported that Rove had informed President Bush and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten he would be indicted and would leave his White House post immediately once it was announced. The basis for these reports? “Sources,” of course.

Had either of these stories appeared on the front page of The New York Times, or in Newsweek magazine, we would be in the throes of a media feeding frenzy. The Sunday Show slates would have been hurriedly rearranged to capitalize on this new “bombshell” and America would have woken up this morning to watch Rove make the quick walk-and-duck from his front door to his waiting car. But so far, Leopold’s story stands alone.

Update: Read below for an Editor's Note clarifying this post.

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