A Liberal Conundrum

To reveal or not to reveal your sources, that is the question. Jim Spencer grapples with this question in his column this morning:

"I salute Miller for enduring a contempt-of-court finding by a federal judge.

I praise her for her courage and for understanding how vital confidential informants are to checking the greed and tyranny that so often accompanies power.

That said, I am badly torn by the case in which Miller made her stand.

First, the case involves a criminal investigation of whether someone broke a federal law when they revealed the name of an undercover CIA operative. The law means to save lives, not enrich the haves or subordinate the have-nots.

Second, and most important, Newsweek and MSNBC report that White House political director Karl Rove might have a role in this business."

I can understand the first reason for being torn on this topic. Miller is essentially protecting someone who broke the law. Harboring an information fugitive, if you will.

But on the second reason, he shows just how much disdain the liberal media has for the Bush administration. In other words, it's okay to reveal your sources if it hurts your political enemies.

What if we find out that the source of the leak was not a Republican, but rather a Democrat? Of course, there will be great wailing and gnashing of teeth that the reporter was forced to reveal the source and the story will not be about the indictment that should follow, but about the damage that has been done to the media's ability to find anonymous sources.

Sidebar: As if this isn't enough, Spencer continues:

"Even if he (Rove) wasn't the original source of information on Plame's identity, the president's man may have helped spread Plame's name after it was published in a column by Robert Novak. Rove apparently did so for purely political reasons. Rove was angry that Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, told the truth about Iraq's nonexistent nuclear weapons program."

I had to read this twice. After the column came out, Rove helped spread Plame's name. So what? If I read Spencer's column, I'm not allowed to talk about it with anyone. I think that Wilson and Plame did a pretty good job of exposing themselves in Vanity Fair. This is the weakest argument he could possibly make.

Then he goes on to assume he knows what Rove was feeling or why he talked about Plame after the world knew that she was a CIA agent and to assume that Wilson was telling the "truth" about his mission to Niger.

This is a tough one for Spencer and his buddies in the news industry: advocate journalistic "integrity" or lynch someone in the Bush Administration. What's a lefty to do?