The part of Cooper's new article that REALLY bugs me is this >>>

[Roland99]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1124287,00.html

I had no idea that that brief phone call, along with a conversation with Karl Rove the day before, would leave me embroiled in a federal investigation for more than two years and that Libby would end up facing a five-count indictment. I doubt it occurred to Libby either. That afternoon, we talked a bit on background and off the record, and he gave me an on-the-record quote distancing Cheney from Wilson's fact-finding trip to Africa for the CIA. In fact, he was so eager to distance his boss from Wilson that a few days later, he called to rebuke me for not having used the whole quote in the piece. We updated the online version of the story

So, Cooper didn't use an entire quote that would properly "distance" Cheney from Wilson so Libby calls up Cooper and then Cooper updates the online version of the article to match what Libby wanted?

Why didn't Cooper just have Libby write the article for him?!

We already had the other situation with Russert where Libby had called Russert upset with another NBC/MSNBC (was it Tweety?) anchor that had pissed off Libby and Cheney and Russert took it to the President of NBC. I wonder if that helped by MSNBC/NBC into apologist mode for a while?



edit: oops...added the link to the new Time article

[jsamuel]

1. exactly, this has been going on for years

only one side of the argument gets a red line phone to the press

[hiaasenrocks]

2. The part that bothered me the most was the image of

Cooper lying on his bed. Oh, and the swimming, and showering, etc. As someone noted earlier, what a bunch of self-indulgent bullshit.

But to comment on your post, I think Cooper may have felt as though he had to update the quote because to not do so might mean losing a highly-placed source in the VP's office. It sucks. I don't like it either. But that's the way it works sometimes.

[NNN0LHI]

3. Free press. Free to lie. Free to obfuscate. Free to deceive n/t

[fooj]

4. I'm sending Cooper a copy of this...

CODE OF ETHICS from the Society of Professional Journalists!!!

https://www.spj.org/ethics_code.asp

<snip>
Preamble
Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society's principles and standards of practice.
<snip>

Come to think of it...I should e-mail one to every media outlet I can find! Grrrrrrrr...

Peace.

[Mandate My Ass]

6. Egg Zactly

I worked for a pissant rag with a circulation of about 12,000 and one day some asshole city council member called me up to "go over which quotes" I'd be using in my article from my interview the night before. Stunned, I asked him where he got the crazed notion that he had any kind of editorial control over what I wrote. He said that the reporter before me allowed him to do that. I reported this to my editor and he said "screw that city council member" but he also pleaded with me not to divulge to anybody on the staff or off it that my predecessor had done this since it would damage the paper's reputation.

Un-freaking-believable. :eyes:

[FreedomAngel82]

5. This article is also very telling too with Cheney

It goes to show he was very much involved. I hope Fitzgerald sees this.
And good point on Libby writing the article himself. He probably didn't so he wouldn't get caught but unlucky for him he did anyways.

[MelissaB]

8. Should we nominate this thread? n/t

[tulsakatz]

7. we always knew there was something fishy about......

.....a connection between the White House and the press!! Especially during the build up to the war!!

[Igel]

9. That would be this article, I suspect.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,465270,00.html

---
In an exclusive interview Lewis Libby, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, told TIME: "The Vice President heard about the possibility of Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Niger in February 2002. As part of his regular intelligence briefing, the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report. During the course of a year, the Vice President asked many such questions and the agency responded within a day or two saying that they had reporting suggesting the possibility of such a transaction. But the agency noted that the reporting lacked detail. The agency pointed out that Iraq already had 500 tons of uranium, portions of which came from Niger, according to the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA). The Vice President was unaware of the trip by Ambassador Wilson and didn't know about it until this year when it became public in the last month or so. " Other senior Administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, have also claimed that they had not heard of Wilson's report until recently.
----

I tried going to the internet archives, hoping that they'd grabbed a copy before it was updated (their first copy is 7/19/03) and I could tell exactly what was added, but no luck.

[Garbo 2004]

10. eh, common practice to rein in the press. Recall when Tweety was a bit

rough on Malkin and the Swifties he got calls from the WH I think (Rover has him on speed dial evidently) telling him to shape up if he ever wanted any of their folks to appear on his show. They would dry up the flow of Repub officials and RW punditocracy to his show.

Presumably that would be a bad thing for Matthews' show? I'd figure it would be a relief. (Likely GE didn't agree...need to get the word out after all.) Tweets dutifully pulled it back as I recall.