Kuttner Corrects, Snarks

Robert Kuttner retracts his "Rove Did It, and Fitzgerald is in on it!" column last week:

LAST WEEK in this space, I implied that the special counsel in the Valerie Plame leak case, Patrick Fitzgerald, might be protecting the Bush administration. It made no sense, I argued, that New York Times reporter Judith Miller was going to jail for protecting a source, while columnist Robert Novak, who first published the leak, either had revealed his source to Fitzgerald and thus solved the case or should be under similar threats but wasn't. Ergo: Fitzgerald was going after the press rather than the White House.

Wrong on all counts. In 20 years of writing columns for the Globe, I've had to print minor corrections, but this is the first story I really booted. I owe readers and prosecutor Fitzgerald an explanation and an apology.

He goes on to list how very, very wrong his column of last week was...

...and closes with what amounts to an "I know Rove is, but what am I":

As Michael Kinsley has observed, not all leaks are created morally equal. It's one thing for reporters to protect a brave whistle-blower who has taken personal risks to serve the public interest. It is another thing for reporters to collude with the powerful to punish the whistle-blower, in this case Joseph Wilson, and his wife, an innocent bystander.

...whose "whistleblowing" has been completely trounced, but what's a little thing like truth among reporters?

Posted by Mitch at July 13, 2005 12:12 PM | TrackBack