Watergate was founded on the charge that Nixon had abused the IRS to go after enemies. But the truth is he only TRIED. He was unable to get the IRS to cooperate.
Flash forward to Clinton. Only this year, an investigator was about to report how Clinton abused the IRS, and ordered many politically-motivated audits. We here are familiar with many of the names, including Paula Jones and others.
On an even more insidious level, now consider that there is always a shadow left wing government around, particularly at State and CIA. And the best evidence of that is Walson and Plame. Call it the bad Clinton aftertaste. Even worse, remember Bush let many of these people 'burrow down' after Slick and the Pantsuit carried off their last bit of silverware.
The media also plays a role. Because in this game, the disatisfied are always there to help the press 'do its job.' And with so many libs holding down postions of power and within the ranks, sources and stories are without end.
Squaring all this up with Plame-Wilson, however, shows how overconfident this 'arrangement' has become. The case at hand is about a non-covert agent, sending her partisan husband off on a mission under the guise of objectivity. And after the husband duly reports to a Senate committee his findings, he immediately (actually not even immediately) misrepresents his work, and 'outs' his un-outable wife just to muddy the waters.
Enter the press to play their part in advocacy journalism. Unlike their 'work' during Clinton, where nothing is ever found or really investigated (except Monica, thanks to Drudge), we find this thundering herd of dunderheads busy tripping over themselves, and never even taking the time to catch a breath. As a result their stories never have the 'connectedness' to bring the reader up to speed about what is known and what isn't. Instead, all or most stories are projections by the reporter that keep liberal hope alive that Rove or Bush will be destroyed at the end of the day.
As a result their stories never have the 'connectedness' to bring the reader up to speed about what is known and what isn't
I can barely stand to read a newspaper's version of a story anymore.
Modern "journalism" has undergone the same disastrous transformation that crippled the CIA during the '80s and '90s when the agency decided to rely on satellites rather than on agents in the field. Most of today's journalists do their "investigating" from the comfort of their computer screens rather than by pounding the street.
Journalism has become a variant of the old saw about three blind men examining an elephant, except in journalism's case it's three liberals examining the elephant and they keep getting their hands around the same part of the elephant, again and again.