Cathie Martin - weasel.
Posted on 01/27/2007 11:26:26 AM PST by paulat
Ex-Cheney aide shares media manipulation By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 51 minutes ago
A smorgasbord of Washington insider details has emerged during the perjury trial of the vice president's former chief of staff.
For example, when Dick Cheney really needed friends in the news media, his staff was short of phone numbers.
No one served up spicier morsels than Cheney's former top press assistant. Cathie Martin described the craft of media manipulation — under oath and in blunter terms than politicians like to hear in public.
The uses of leaks and exclusives. When to let one's name be used and when to hide in anonymity. Which news medium was seen as more susceptible to control and what timing was most propitious. All candidly described. Even the rating of certain journalists as friends to favor and critics to shun — a faint echo of the enemies list drawn up in Richard Nixon's White House more than 30 years ago.
The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby owes its very existence to a news leak, the public disclosure four summers ago of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.
A private brainstorm of Plame's in 2002 brought a rain of public attacks on Cheney the following year. Cheney was accused of suppressing intelligence and allowing President Bush to present false information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Plame's husband, ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, started the attack. Her unit at the CIA had sent him to Niger in 2002 to check a report Iraq was buying uranium for nuclear weapons. Cheney and the departments of State and Defense wanted to verify that.
Wilson thought he had debunked the report, but Bush mentioned it anyway in his State of the Union address in 2003. The story helped justify war with Iraq.
Wilson claimed Cheney's questions prompted his trip and Cheney should have received his report long before Bush spoke.
Wilson's charges first surfaced, attributed to an unnamed ex-ambassador, in Nicholas Kristof's New York Times column. But Martin testified she felt no urgency to set him straight because Kristof "attacked us, our administration fairly regularly."
But by July 6, 2003, Wilson wrote his own account in the Times and appeared on "Meet the Press" on NBC.
After that much exposure, Cheney, Libby and Martin spent the next week trying get out word that Cheney did not know Wilson, did not ask for the mission to Niger, never got Wilson's report and only learned about the trip from news stories in 2003.
Cheney personally dictated these points to Martin. She e-mailed them to the White House press secretary for relay to reporters.
When the story did not die, Martin found herself in a bind because Cheney's office was known for disclosing so little.
"Often the press stopped calling our office," Martin testified. "At this point, they weren't calling me asking me for comment."
So she had to call National Security Council and CIA press officers to learn which reporters were still working on stories.
Once Martin got names, Cheney ordered his right-hand man, Libby, rather than lowly press officers, to call — a signal of the topic's importance.
Top levels of the Bush administration decided that CIA Director George Tenet would issue a statement taking the blame for allowing Bush to mention the Niger story. Cheney and Libby worried Tenet would not go far enough to distance the vice president from the affair.
Libby asked Martin to map a media strategy in case Tenet fell short.
A Harvard law school graduate, Martin had succeeded legendary Republican operative Mary Matalin as Cheney's political and public affairs assistant. Matalin had brought Martin to Cheney's office as her deputy and trained her.
Martin offered these options in order:
_Put Cheney on "Meet the Press."
_Leak an exclusive version to a selected reporter or the weekly news magazines.
_Have national security adviser Condoleezza Rice or Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hold a news conference.
_Persuade a third party or columnist to write an opinion piece that would appear in newspapers on the page opposite the editorials.
Not only did Tenet leave unanswered questions about Cheney, his remarks came out late on a Friday, the government's favorite moment to deliver bad news.
Why?
"Fewer people pay attention to it later on Friday," Martin testified. "And in our view, fewer people are paying attention on Saturday, when it's reported."
As Martin rated their options, putting Cheney on "Meet the Press," NBC's Sunday morning talk show, "is our best format." Cheney was their best person for the show and "we control the message a little bit more," according to Martin.
The downside was that Cheney could "get pulled into the weeds and specifics. We like to keep him at a pretty high level," she said. Also, it "looks defensive to rush him out on `Meet the Press.'"
Next they could give an exclusive or leak to one reporter and she considered David Sanger of The New York Times, Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, or Time or Newsweek.
Because reporters are competitive, "if you give it to one reporter, they're more likely to write the story," Martin testified.
Plus an official can demand anonymity in return for the favor. "You can give it to them as a senior administration official," she said. "You don't have to say this is coming directly from the White House."
The news weeklies offered a focus on the big picture and opinion-editorial writers and columnists could voice opinions.
Ultimately, Cheney crafted an on-the-record statement to be attributed to Libby by name along with some anonymous background information. Libby personally called Matt Cooper of Time, who had e-mailed questions to Martin earlier.
But when Libby suggested calling Newsweek in fairness, Cheney's aides were at a loss.
"We were scrambling for a number for a reporter that we know there named Evan Thomas," Martin testified. "We were looking around for a number. I didn't have it with me." Eventually, they found a number and left a message.
But Cooper did not use the full quote and Martin called to complain. "I put Scooter on the phone with him, which we didn't do very often on the record with a quote," she testified, "and he took just a piece of it." The result "wasn't helpful" and the story did not fade away.
So the following week, two senior Bush aides — communications director Dan Bartlett and Rice's deputy, Steve Hadley — briefed White House reporters. Cheney invited a group of conservative columnists to lunch at his residence.
This Cathie Martin chick should be toast.
Here's the difference between Dems and Reps. Dems will take the fall for the good of the party. They stick together to the end. Reps take care of themselves. If Watergate happened under a Democrat administration, nobody would have left office.
Cathie Martin - weasel.
And it STILL doesn't make any sense to me.
Even the rating of certain journalists as friends to favor and critics to shun — a faint echo of the enemies list drawn up in Richard Nixon's White House more than 30 years ago.
Very faint.
I dont know if Scooter Libby is a friend or foe.
What I DO KNOW is that GWB has no one to blame but himself for promising to "fire" the Plame leaker, when in reality, it was a Democrap political hit job from the get go.
BUSH SHOULD HAVE CALLED A PRESS CONFERENCE and denounced Joe Wilson as a partisan hack who had not only had a CONFLICT IF INTEREST in going to Niger, but was also a political hack.
The Justice Dept investigation should have been WHO WAS BEHIND THE SCHEME TO SLANT AND DISTORT.
Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson should have been put under oath and made to talk about who, when and where this attack on the Executive Branch was conceived, and were others in the CIA involved.
GWB is such a wussy wimp sometimes it makes me spit.
Instead of getting tough on these terrorist-helpers, GWB instead goes along with the NYTimes version of events, and instead ends up destroying his own people.
What's funny (as in sinister) about this is that these statements have been proven to be absolutely false while the following statement has been proven to be absolutely true.
After that much exposure, Cheney, Libby and Martin spent the next week trying get out word that Cheney did not know Wilson, did not ask for the mission to Niger, never got Wilson's report and only learned about the trip from news stories in 2003.
Aside from the fact that Niger officials, British and other intelligence agencies stand by the claim that the Iraqis were trying to buy uranium, that Wilson's verbal report verified this, that Valerie Plame was not covert and no crime was committed. Which do you think the reporter wants you to believe and which will the average skull full of mush believe?
The administration is going to win or lose the war in the media, I just can't for the life of me figure out why they won't take it seriously.
They are feckless. Billions of bucks 3000 killed and numb nuts now decides to fight a war. Shame....
Not quite what I meant. We are winning the war militarily, without question, as we did in Vietnam. The administration isn't taking on the enemy's Fifth Column, the mainstream media, allied with the party of the enemy, the democrats.
I am not even sure why this particular story was written. None of this is against the law, and this is a normal practice is Washington.
The politicians manipulate the media and the media manipulate the politicians.
This should come as no shock to anyone.
As long as no one knowingly leaked the name of undercover CIA agent, then the law was not broken.
Good grief, with the writing of the story, the media is attempting to manipulate the American public.
Nor am I...I just don't understand why this stupid woman spewed so much that could be exploited.
I just heard on the news (top of the hour radio) that President Bush has asked the Democrap congress "Please give my policies a chance".
I almost vomited.
Where is GWB's balls? In Hillary's lockbox?
He SHOULD have issued a statement: "For six years, the Republicans and this White House have been the ones who put forth real ideas, with real plans, to improve health care and to keep America safe from alQaeda terror."
"At the same time, the Democrats mocrats have done nothing but obstructionists, blocking every single thing we did to improve life for citizens in America."
"And today, the Democrats did it again, by passing a Resolution which gives terrorists enemies of the USA hope and comfort that they can wear down the resolve and power of this great nation."
"Today, I call on all those who love this country to contact these lightweights in Congress and tell them to do what's in the best interest of our fighting men and women in the MidEast, and across the globe."
Like I said, I believe Bush has been so pummelled by the Democraps and media (same thing) he has lost his mind.
The fact that Nixon had an enemies list was very prudent. Most of the press hated him, and they shouldn't have expected him to roll over and play dead. Bush has the same problem.
Agreed. I am a stalwart Bush defender, and I get plenty of opportunities to do so in my Democrat heavy locale. When he doesn't fight back it makes it real hard to defend him against the media crap the people constantly regurgitate.
Sad part is, the Plame thing could have been so easy to crush.
What can be expected from the nest of snakes that do the peoples work in Washington, DC. If we do have another terrorist attack, let it be in this God forsaken town!
Bush's "new tone", his seeming lack of passion and articulation and his handling of the media has created the biggest problems his administration had/has to face in general and with his "natural" base in particular.
He also should've known that it's not a non-crime that gets you in trouble with the media and Dem vampires, it's a non-coverup of a non-crime.
That said, I didn't find anything in article that Martin said that was in any way illegal or particularly horrible by DC standards - that's the way POLITICAL media attacks are handled in Washington by any administration - you get your counterpoint into the media and via the media. Of course, one should take into account who your enemies may be in the media and not try to "use" them, or they will use you. This "case" without a crime is really all about POLITICAL use and manipulation of the media... Fitz (just like in his press-conference) is trying to make it into a crime and about "the war" - except he says it isn't, and defendant is somehow not allowed to use or question these facts in the course of his defense.
Since there has not been a crime worth "investigating", Fitz has to create a "look and feel" of it to confuse the jurors and the public... he is trying to show supposedly seedy and distasteful machinery of "this" [Nixonian] WH and its "manipulations" of the media to imply that they "manipulated" the intelligence and took out their frustrations at being uncovered by Joe Wilson on his wife, one Valerie Plame.
Right now is his turn to present a case, and media is playing along, citing "big names" in White House and recycling the old allegations, and ignoring to mention the truth and for the most part the counters by the defense.
Defense will have its turn, but I don't expect media to cover that objectively either, so we should not get reflexively distracted by headlines or adjectives provided by the biggest criminal players of all in this judicial sham.
"Fitz = Nifong x2" should be a loud rallying cry; not the minutiae of how news LEGALLY gets into media, but how its meaning was changed by cutting and/or splicing words by the media; not how media or intelligence was "manipulated' by the WH, but how media manipulated and manufactured the supposed Wilson's "intelligence"; not how "investigation" was progressing, but how and why "investigation" even started and continued; not he said, she said" but why people who possibly committed crimes or at least exhibited unethical conduct are not charged, and why same unethical conduct was covered up by Fitzgerald himself.
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