PressEthic

In the October 31st issue of Newsweek there is a story called “The Gathering Storm” written by Richard Wolffe and Daniel Klaidman. Every single quote in this story is from an anonymous source. Here are a few of examples:

“It’s absurd,” said one former administration official, who declined to be named because of the fragile state of the Miers nomination. “They really should have just said, ‘We have too much on our plate.’”

“We wanted to help them and it seemed like they didn’t want to be helped,” said one Republican Judiciary staffer who requested anonymity because his boss had not formally decided how to vote.”

“I can’t stand this anymore,” said one dispirited member of Leo’s group who requested anonymity to avoid alienating the White House. “It’s like sitting around in a bull session where everybody’s out of ideas.”

Now, these sources are a bit more descriptive than the average “anonymous source” but come on! It actually got tiring to read. Luckily each source had a different reason for not releasing their names, so that was something to look forward to.

I understand this is a touchy subject – but everyone else in Washington D.C. seems to have an opinion and aren’t afraid to let everyone know it. How come Wolffe and Klaidman couldn’t find any of these people to talk to?

The subtitle of this story is “How Katrina hurt Harriet” but I don’t think the writers make a good argument – or any argument for that matter – to prove the statement. If anything Katrina should have helped Miers by taking some focus off of her.

The writers say that the president’s lawyers were over worked and “stretched thin” because not only were they checking Miers’s record that is “shrouded in the secrecy of her private legal advice,” they were also “digging up documents in response to multiple inquiries into Hurricane Katrina.”

How do these statements prove that Hurricane Katrina hurt Harriet Miers’s nomination? Are they saying that it was Hurricane Katrina’s fault that the questionnaire Miers filled out was so “full of holes even GOP senators sent it back for a do-over”? I just don’t get it…am I missing something?

I’m glad Miers finally withdrew her nomination. We have enough crises going on in America today. God forbid we try to deal with more than one at a time.