But that didn't stop the press from going hog wild. The New York Times led
the clamor for an independent prosecutor (who, once appointed, put the
Times' own reporter, Judith Miller, in jail). And unlike the journalists who
insisted that John Mark Karr was innocent until proven guilty, the Times'
mob of liberal pundits worked from the opposite assumption when it came to
Karl Rove et al. Paul Krugman suggested Rove should receive his medal for
ruining America from a jail cell. Maureen Dowd insisted, "The issue is the
administration's credibility, not Joe Wilson's." And, of course, the
left-wing blogs spewed bile about "treason" all day long.
Now, I'm not saying the press shouldn't have investigated Wilson's
allegations. Even if we now know he isn't a serious man, the charges surely
were. But I don't think it was wrong for the press to cover Karr
exhaustively (as opposed to excessively) either. The press has been in the
true-crime business for centuries. The JonBenet Ramsey murder was a huge
story, and a man with a reported record of interest in underage girls
confessed to the crime in Bangkok - a Mecca for perverts The Karr story was
unfolding in real time, and the news is supposed to cover, you know, news.
Most important, unlike Wilson, Karr was in a position to know the truth of
the matter.
Kurtz wrote this about the Karr story: "Facts don't matter in frenzies; what
matters is camera-ready speculation, where opposing lawyers and
ex-prosecutors can argue on one talk show after another." Just replace
lawyers and ex-prosecutors with spinners, pundits and consultants, and the
same holds true.
I don't know if the Wilson fraud will instantly go down with the greatest
media embarrassments in modern history. However, the press doesn't seem to
mind beating itself up when it overindulges the public's passions. But when
its own self-indulgence is the issue, there's never any need to feel
embarrassed. Indeed, there's no need to say anything at all.