Washington Post's idle speculation

The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei and Carol Leonnig wrote part 758 in the ongoing PlameGate controversy in this morning's paper, but they engage in a bit of baseless speculation that does nothing but reveal the paper's political bias.

In the latter half of the story, the writers talk (read: speculate) about what sorts of charges Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald might have. They flat-out admit they don't know — "...much of the leak probe remains a mystery to those outside the office of Fitzgerald" — so they list some possibilities. It's not attributed to any source, so it appears they've made stuff up. In the second-to-last paragraph, they write:

Fitzgerald could have evidence, for instance, that Rove or other officials encouraged someone to tell a coverup story to explain their conversations about Plame, which could lead to a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Or, they could find evidence, for instance, that Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame are really aliens on a secret mission from the planet Zulu, and Karl Rove (also an alien) controls their every move with his powerful mind rays.

What a bunch of garbage! It's made-up stuff like this, along with irresponsible use of anonymous sources, that have caused the public to trust the media so little. For a concurrent issue that reveals press bias, maybe you should read this and this about the press questions at a White House briefing the other day.

For a comparison discussion on the use of speculation, I point you to a couple of posts in The Corner on National Review. John Podhoretz wrote two very interesting posts about alternative possibilities in the PlameGate investigation, possibilities that will never see the light of day in the mainstream press. They were written late Tuesday and early Wednesday. No matter how interesting they were, however, I chose not to repeat them in this blog because they were — get ready for it — idle speculation that appeared to have little basis in fact. The fact that Podhoretz wrote what he did is a little bit troubling because of its speculative nature. If he would have written what he did, but it appeared in the New York Post (his day job), I would consider him no better than VandeHei and Leonnig. But the fact that he did it in a blog, to me, softens the offense because: 1) As the media are so eager to point out, bloggers are different from those "professional" journalists with their layers of checks and balances; and 2) It was done at a website that publishes opinion (National Review).

Still, if I (as a little blogger in my pajamas — or actually, right now I'm in my bathrobe) can decide to exclude something because it's completely speculative, why can't the Washington Post — with its layers of checks and balances — do the same? Because it appears too many media members will run with an opportunity to paint the Bush administration as law-breaking cover-up artists, regardless of whether it has any basis in fact.

And lest you think I'm violating my own rule by speculating on something without a basis in fact, I would only say this — I can provide plenty of evidence to support my speculation. If the Washington Post has such evidence, it should do the same, or leave it out of a "news" story.

(HT: HH)