Selective Media Persecution

While The New York Times, Washington Post, television networks, cable news stations and other media outlets try to monopolize the news cycle speculating about what Karl Rove did or did not tell reporters, it’s worth recounting that liberal leakers didn’t make such headlines when their lips went loose.  Indeed, many Democrat bigwigs have admitted that they dealt improvidently with secret information, sometimes with questionable motives, but somehow, inexplicably, the supposedly aggressive press has buried those stories.

Most recently, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the Senate floor and expressly referred to a private FBI file on judicial nominee Judge Henry Saad.  Reid noted a “problem” in the report even though Senate rules require the Members to keep FBI information strictly confidential.

Failed presidential candidate John Kerry is himself guilty of breaching official confidentiality by outing a CIA officer.  During John Bolton’s nationally televised and widely reported confirmation hearings, Kerry identified a covert operative by name in spite of the Committee Chairman’s repeated requests that the operative’s name not be mentioned.

While serving as Director of Central Intelligence, John Deutsch wrote, stored and accessed classified memos on the same unsecured home computer that he used to surf the Internet.

A Federal Appeals Court recently said that New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, while serving as President Clinton’s Secretary of Energy, was a likely source of disparaging leaks about former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee.

In 2004, Senators Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden improperly disclosed the existence of a classified spy satellite program on the floor of the U.S. Senate so they could pronounce their opposition to what they believed was excessive spending.

During the 1980s, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) leaked the Senate Intelligence Committee’s draft report on the Iran-Contra investigation. The draft contained information on CIA intelligence gathering methods. Leahy later resigned from the Committee in disgrace.

And only last year, former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger destroyed classified documents related to intelligence about terrorism that he stole from the National Archives by stuffing them in his pants.  Berger then apparently lied to investigators and the American public about what he had done, while Democrats rushed to defend him, arguing that the story was leaked to distract attention from the recently released 9/11 Commission Report.  A federal investigation finally dragged the truth out of Berger when he copped a plea to avoid some real legal troubles.

If there has been any real indiscretion on the part of Karl Rove, it merits a response in proportion to its severity.  But let’s just not kid ourselves that the liberals are without sin despite what the mainstream media would have you believe.  Rove may be on cover of Time magazine, but if the media were really fair and balanced he wouldn’t be the first.