Spying on the Press

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 22, 2006 9:24 AM

The folks at Hewlett-Packard don't exactly hold journalists in high regard.

Can you believe the pathetic details that are dribbling out about the computer giant's leak investigation? It sounds like the Nixon White House plumbers were in charge.

The burgeoning scandal has already toppled the chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, and now we find out that the CEO, Mark Hurd, approved a sting operation against a reporter?

Who did these folks think they were, the FBI? What utter contempt for the fourth estate.

It was bad enough when they hired private eyes who used a shady technique called "pretexting" to obtain the phone records of one director and, according to press accounts, some journalists. But the batch of e-mails published yesterday by The Washington Post shows that the CEO, Mark Hurd, approved an elaborate sting against a reporter for CNet. And the Wall Street Journal reports that one of its reporters was followed for months.

It sounds like a bad B movie.

Top HP officials created a bogus tipster, "Jacob," to suck up to CNet's Dawn Kawamoto, send her an e-mail with a "tracer" in it and watch who she forwarded it to. One Hewlett executive wrote, "I think we have to figure out who Jacob is, weak, strong, vindictive, a Bill and Dave fan, possibly lower level employee . . . will dictate the tone of the e-mail."

The public would surely be outraged against such snooping against journalists -- that is, if it didn't hold journalists in such minimum high regard.

Some online buzz about this Post column by David Broder , who pleads for a coalition of the center in unusually opinionated (for him) language:

"Bush was elected twice, over Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, whose know-it-all arrogance rankled Midwesterners such as myself. The country thought Bush was a pleasant, down-to-earth guy who would not rock the boat. Instead, swayed by some inner impulse or the influence of Dick Cheney, he has proved to be lawless and reckless. He started a war he cannot finish, drove the government into debt and repeatedly defied the Constitution.

"Now, however, you can see the independence party forming -- on both sides of the aisle. They are mobilizing to resist not only Bush but also the extremist elements in American society -- the vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left and the doctrinaire religious extremists on the right who would convert their faith into a whipping post for their opponents.

"The center is beginning to fight back. Michael Bloomberg, the Republican mayor of New York, is holding a fundraiser for Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat running as an independent against the bloggers' favorite, Ned Lamont. His election is important, as is Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee's in Rhode Island, because both would signal that independence is a virtue to be rewarded."

Any mention of Lieberman gets bloggers riled up, as we see in the American Prospect post by Greg Sargent :

"How could anyone possibly conclude that the election of the candidate who agrees with Bush on the most important national security issues of the day (Lieberman) would represent a victory for independence, while the election of the candidate whose position on the war is shared by majorities (Lamont) would represent a victory for extremism? This is a sincere question: How on earth could anyone come to that conclusion?"

Automoplane : "What planet did David Broder phone this in from exactly? I felt my brain melting while reading this. My favorite part is the assertion that Mike Bloomberg is bucking Bush and the Republicans by campaigning for Joe Lieberman against Ned Lamont. Yes, campaigning for a candidate who backs Bush on the war (and whom Bush has essentially endorsed himself) and is running against a Democrat is bucking Bush."

Meta-Media : "There's one overarching problem with the centrism fetish: there's no evidence -- none whatsoever -- that centrism is actually favored by any Americans outside of David Broder. (At least, no evidence that Broder cites.)"

No wimpy bipartisanship for Arianna Huffington , no ma'am:

"What the hell was Bill Clinton thinking, inviting Laura Bush to deliver the keynote address at his latest Global Initiative conference? Talk about speeching with the enemy.

"Have those private White House lunches Mr. Clinton occasionally has with Laura's hubby distorted his sense of time, place, and perspective -- causing him to utterly forget that there are less than seven weeks before a crucial election . . . an election Democrats should walk away with but are in danger of letting slip through their hands, an election that could give Democrats investigative power over the many outrages perpetrated by Laura's husband, an election in which the Democrats' strongest campaign message is linking congressional Republicans to the disastrous policies of said husband? . . .

"This is not a time for Bill Clinton to be acting like a former president, floating above the political fray. This is a time for Bill Clinton to be acting like a Democratic former president. There is a world of difference between the two.

"There couldn't be less ambiguity about the stark choice being offered to the electorate in November. Do you want to let George Bush continue to have a free hand in destroying this country or do you want to pull the plug on him? It's that simple.

"So why cloud the issue by giving a powerful symbol of the Bush administration a giant platform to deliver an upbeat message to the world about her husband's good intentions, announcing a major White House initiative on providing clean drinking water to Africa?"

The big news this morning is the torture deal, although, in classic congressional form, some of the details have yet to be hammered out (such as a list of approved techniques, which the White House has to publish, and then Congress can comment upon, yadda yadda). Is it just another case of two Washington factions papering over their differences?

"The Bush administration and Congressional Republicans reached agreement Thursday on legislation governing the treatment and interrogation of terror suspects after weeks of debate that divided Republicans heading into the midterm elections," says the New York Times .

"Under the deal, President Bush dropped his demand that Congress redefine the nation's obligations under the Geneva Conventions, handing a victory to a group of Republicans, including Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose opposition had created a showdown over a fundamental aspect of the rules for battling terrorism.

"The administration's original stance had run into fierce resistance from former and current military lawyers and Mr. Bush's former secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They argued, as did Mr. McCain and the other two senators leading the resistance, that any redefinition would invite other nations to alter their obligations and endanger American troops captured abroad."

Here's the telling paragraph: "The White House moved quickly to assert that it had not surrendered. Administration officials characterized the negotiations as cooperative and the result as a victory for all sides."

Doth protest too much?

The Boston Globe : "Both sides expressed confidence that the agreement would allow the CIA's interrogation program for 'high-value' suspects, the exact parameters of which remain classified, to continue . . .

"The breakthrough ends a political stand off that had become a distraction for the GOP. Rather than showing a unified front in battling terrorism, Republicans in recent days have been forced to grapple with internal divisions over how to interrogate suspects, with Democrats sitting on the sidelines."

The liberal blogs don't like the deal.

"Yes, McCain sells out the country and Democrats look like crap," says Atrios . "Shame on me for allowing myself to get a tiny bit optimistic just for a moment."

McJoan at Daily Kos picks up on a Bill Frist quote: "The 'very important program of interrogation' that they have agreed to preserve is torture. Torture is at the heart of this program and is what the administration has been fighting for since the Supreme Court handed down Hamdan . . .

"That's no compromise, all you 'principled' GOP rebels. It's capitulation. Lay down your much vaunted 'integrity' and take up your Rubber Stamps."

On the right, Power Line's Paul Mirengoff holds his nose:

"The administration has made a deal with the terrorist rights wing of the Republican party -- Senators McCain, Graham, and Warner -- on detainee treatment . . . My sense is that this is not a bad deal under the circumstances. Unfortunately, the circumstances weren't very good."

I took note a few days back of some conservatives who said it would be better if the Republicans lost the House, and besides, they don't really deserve to keep control. Now comes Slate Editor Jake Weisberg to frame the argument from the other side of the aisle:

"There are reasons why the Democrats might be better off denying Republicans the defeat they crave in November. For the majority in the next Congress, Democrats wouldn't be able to accomplish anything significant. The party would still lack the votes to pass health-care reform or to repeal the Bush tax cuts.

"But with control of even one chamber by one vote, the failure to act on such issues would now be their fault as well. Iraq and the fiscal mess would no longer be just Bush's problems. The Democratic Party will have a much clearer story line heading into the 2008 election if it is simply the party out of power and can call for a complete change.

"But if defeat would serve Democrats' longer-range success in this way, why aren't party leaders at least ambivalent about what happens in November? The answer is partly that the interests of individual Democratic leaders diverge from that of the party as a whole. Rahm Emanuel's political future now depends on whether he can deliver the House. Nancy Pelosi wants to be the first woman in the speaker's chair. Ranking Democrats on the committees hanker for the laurels and perquisites of chairmen. The rank and file want to throw off their chains.

"For all of them, the issues are primarily career and quality of life, not the party's presidential prospects. What's more, there is no real way, practically or psychologically, that any genuine politician can ever aim for anything other than victory. To attempt to throw the game would be a betrayal of one's colleagues, one's supporters, and one's words. It could also horribly misfire by producing a major defeat rather than a minor one."

But more than that, says Weisberg, it's avoiding the also-ran status of the Washington Wizards (who haven't won a championship since the Carter administration):

"The party has now gone 10 years without a big win. It desperately needs a victory to prove to the country that it's not a perpetual loser and to convince itself of the same thing. Democrats need traction and momentum much more than they need a simple argument to make heading into the 2008 election. Boring though it may be to say, the real winner in the November election will be the winner."

What a concept.

An interesting bit of media criticism here from Meryl Yourish :

"Can you find a news source for the rally against Ahmadinejad at the UN Wednesday? Correction: Can you find a non-Jewish media source, or a non-blogger source, for the rally?

"I can't. Except for the New York Sun.

"I checked AP. Nothing. Reuters. Nada. I checked Google News. Nothing. 1010WINS. Nothing. I checked WABC, NY1, all the New York media sites. Gridlock alerts are the only thing you can find about the march. After all, it's not newsworthy. The fact that 2,000 people marched a day earlier to protest the Iraq war? Oh, yeah, that made the news.

"35,000 people protesting against a man who wants to 'wipe Israel from the map'? Not newsworthy at all."

The cable networks did carry the Iranian president's news conference yesterday morning. I didn't see any shots of protesters.