Wednesday, November 26, 2003

The Spin Is Unbearable

Partisan Politics

Good lord.  Last night I read Josh Marshall, and he was reporting that Orrin Hatch had (quite rightly) shelved a staffer or two.  If you read this Washington Post article, it seems like it’s no big deal.  They just “leaked” the memos.  CalPundit notes a few other vague mentions.

It turns out that the staffer in question actually hacked in or otherwise circumvented security in these systems and went hunting in the confidential information.  He then released it to the press. 

A “leak” implies that the leakee had a right to see the information, but did the wrong thing with it.  This guy didn’t have that right.

Funny, but isn’t this a federal crime?  There are quite a few hackers around the country who are in jail for exactly this sort of thing. 

Plame gets outed, which is a crime.  Nobody gives a shit; the story has no legs, and we have criminal in the administration, somewhere, “undetectable”.  Now a GOP staffer commits standard-issue computer crime, for political advantage...Hatch has done the right thing by benching him, but will the same standards of prosecution apply?  Or is this a “special case”, because he really didn’t “mean” to commit a crime?

All I can say is that if you have a staffer who has committed a federal crime and you want to bury the news, releasing that fact the day before Thanksgiving is probably a great way to do it.


Posted by Ross on 11/26/03 at 05:19 PM
Partisan Politics • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink