Intelligence: Juridics: Libby launches contretemps against mainstream media's belated collusion with errant prosecutor

.
The water gets hotter, thanks to Scooter Libby's supoenas of journalists and newspapers, as the lobsters make final efforts to crawl out of the suddenly boiling pot they had stoked for the VP's man in their previous re-incarnations. Lobsters named Miller (who spent time in the clink first) and the New York Times (which likes to call itself The Times, but it ain't, as that's in London UK and nowhere else, despite all the imitators).

President's Men - Scooter [2]

Quite objectively reporting (I would imagine) on his own boss, his newspaper as employer and article-assigner, Adam Libtak reports (Mar16,2k6) in NYT:

Lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr., a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who faces charges of obstruction of justice, served subpoenas on Tuesday on The New York Times Company and a former reporter for The Times, Judith Miller.

The subpoenas seek documents concerning the disclosure of the identity of an undercover CIA operative, Valerie Wilson. Mr. Libby has been charged with lying to a grand jury about how he learned about Ms. Wilson's identity.

Ms. Miller testified before the grand jury last fall, after having served 85 days in jail to protect a confidential source later revealed to be Mr. Libby. She also provided the grand jury with edited notes of her interviews with Mr. Libby. Ms. Miller retired from The Times in November.

The new subpoenas seek her notes and other materials, including any other documents concerning Ms. Wilson prepared by Ms. Miller and Nicholas D. Kristof, an Op-Ed columnist for The Times; drafts of a personal account by Ms. Miller published in The Times in October concerning her grand jury testimony; documents concerning her interactions with an editor of The Times; and documents concerning a recent Vanity Fair article on the investigation.

A lawyer for Mr. Libby, William H. Jeffress Jr., would not say whether other reporters and news organizations had been subpoenaed. Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Tim Russert of NBC News have received subpoenas, their representatives said.

A spokeswoman for The Times said its lawyers were reviewing the subpoena served on it. A lawyer for Ms. Miller, Robert S. Bennett, said she would probably fight her subpoena.

"It's entirely too broad," Mr. Bennett said. "It's highly likely we'll be filing something with the court."

Of this latest turn of events, hot response is starting already to trickle from the faucette above the pot, desperately attempting to reduce the temperature. A Jeff Gannon (hey!, is that the same guy who ran porn sites or escort services while infiltrating the White House Press corps as a partisan for the Prez? allegedly, of course - nah, couldn't be). Anyway, this JG says:

In a delicious bit of irony, lawyers for Scooter Libby have delivered the first of many, many, many subpoenas to journalists and news organizations. Libby's defense team is turning the tables on the Old Media, who orchestrated the Valerie Plame affair into a major event when it is in fact, nothing.

What will be interesting to see, besides the information that is revealed, is the length to which the Old Media will go to stonewall Libby's lawyers. I am repeating my prediction of another bad year for what some are describing as the "dinosaur media".

It looks like JG is tempted to surf the Liddy counterattack, but there is a link between a certain aspect of their nonpolitical lives. Seems Liddy has done some novel-writing and is a published author of The Apprentice, his 1996 thriller that takes place in 1903 Japan."

The novel earned Libby favorable reviews. The Boston Globe called The Apprentice an "alluring novel of intrigue" while the New York Times Book Review said Libby's "storytelling skill neatly mixes conspiratorial murmurs with a boy's emotional turmoil."

Well, now you know. Since the indictment, Libby's book, The Apprentice (St. Martin's Press), has jumped from #16,249 in sales on Amazon.com to #379, as of Friday evening.[Vicinity of Oct29,2k5]

Hysterically, New Yorker magazine is less comforting in its effort to gannonize Libby under the article title, "Libby's Sex Shocker". I doubt the magazine would review the Libby work with the same outraged puritanism were it unaware of the author's name and political role in the current Administration. It's not much of a connection, but Irve Lewis Libby, Jr, touches a nerve in those of us news-hounds who were astounded at the blatant braggsdacio and pugnacious pulchritude of Jexxx the White House correspondent. - Owlb

P.S. Jacqueline - Valerie Plame got her husband Joe Wilson sent to Niger, not Nigeria. A small slip, given a great Pelicanpost post otherwise (Mar16,2k6). Thanks! - Owlb

Previously in this series:

President's Men - Scooter [1] (Mar14,2k6)

President's Men - Tom [1] (Mar14,2k6)

President's Men - Karl [4] (Aug9,2k5)

President's Men - Karl [3] (Aug1,2k5)

President's Men - Karl [2] (Jul31,2k5)

President's Men - Karl [1] (July13,2k5)