A FREE PRESS vs. JUSTICE

Time-Warner Adheres to the Rule of Law or,
New York Times Steadfast on the Free Press

When the Supreme Court denied them a hearing on their appeal last week, Matthew Cooper of Time and Judith Miller of the New York Times were to begin 120-day jail sentences for refusing to testify and divulge their confidential sources in the unlawful disclosure of covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame. Originally sentenced in October by Chief District Court Judge Thomas Hogan, Cooper and Miller were to surrender to authorities and begin serving their jail sentences this week.

Time-Warner immediately caved on Thursday and turned over all of Cooper's confidential documents to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office. The NY Times on the other hand remain steadfast and refuses to cooperate with prosecutors, and Judith Miller is to begin serving her sentence this Wednesday.

In 2003, someone in the Bush administration leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak in retaliation against Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson. Wilson had embarrassed the Bush administration when he shot down Bush's claim in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger.

Why Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller and not Robert Novak? Novak attributed his information to "two senior" Bush administration officials-who are those "two senior" officials?

Should the courts be able to force a reporter to disclose their sources when a felony has been committed? Is the New York Times upholding the 1st Amendment by refusing to cooperate with the Federal District Court?

I'm for upholding the 1st Amendment but it sure would be nice to see who the 'senior officials' in Bush's inner circle are (Rove has been questioned for two hours by the grand jury) and to see the fur fly when they're indicted for exposing a CIA operative, a felony.

Bush has said he wants to get to the 'bottom of this' and I must admit I agree with him on something; so do I.