The LAT is all for principle, except on Roe.

He Played Dido: Has the New York Times Magazine now written enough puff pieces about L.A. public radio d.j. Nic Harcourt? To Rob Walker's 760 words  in January they've now added Jaime Wolf's 4,271--this for a man with barely enough on-air personality to sustain a prepositional phrase. Like the L.A. Times, Harcourt's KCRW empire of the "semipopular" is a Southern California institution that seems terrific to gullible East Coasters who don't have to live with it every day. Harcourt's scared to rock. His interviews are painful and formulaic. He doesn't provide "a subtle connective tissue, contextualizing the listening experience byond just a handful of songs." He puts you to sleep. He's a menace to highway safety. ... I was going to call Harcourt's dreary parade of breathy, self-absorbed, suffocating pop "yuppie shopping music," except that if stores actually played Harcourt's synapse-numbing choices the economy would grind to a halt!  ... Three consistent motifs of L.A. stand-up comedy are plastic surgery, traffic, and how lame KCRW's music is. ... Yes, Harcourt "was the first in America to play Norah Jones." I like Norah Jones. But do you want to listen to the kind of DJ who'd be the first to play Norah Jones? I don't think so. . ... P.S.: Wolf finally flicks at some of these criticisms in a to-be-sure graf about 3,700 words into his piece, but he glosses over one obvious potential explanation for the poverty of the Harcourt experience: "Harcourt rarely pays attention to lyrics." After all, nobody who listens to singer-songwriters cares about lyrics! ... P.P.S.: Wolf portrays Harcourt as not corrupt. Better he should be. That would at least provide an explanation. ... Listening to his show, it sure sounds like he's wearily paying off a series of polite social obligations to various artists and promoters. Maybe if he were getting a suitcase of cash under the table he could work up some enthusiasm. ... P.P.P.S.: Have I mentioned that I don't like this guy's taste in music? ... 11:59 P.M. link

Saturday, July 2, 2005

He Could Be Right! On election night, when Democrats started to worry that the exit polls indicating a Kerry victory might not hold up, someone at a party I attended called up Lawrence O'Donnell for reassurance. Don't worry, we were told--O'Donnell says it's all under control because Kerry will win the key swing states! That's when I knew Bush had been reelected. ... O'Donnell is a brilliant pundit because he picks a clear, intriguing, contrarian position and sticks to it. But he's almost always wrong. Which is why I'll believe his report that "Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source"--headlined "Rove Blew CIA Agent's Cover"--when it's confirmed elsewhere. ... Which it pointedly isn't, quite, in Newsweek. ...

Update: In a HuffPo update, O'Donnell accuses Rove's lawyer of choosing his words carefully when saying that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information." [Italics added.] But O'Donnell also seems to be choosing his words carefully. He says of Rove:

"Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper has been protecting for two years ..."

"Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper is protecting ..."

"Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source ..."

"the source of-for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove ..."

He does not say in so many words (at least in any quote I can find) that Rove was the one who outed Plame as a CIA agent, though he seems happy to leave this implication, and he fooled the headline writers at HuffPo and Drudge, who both used the phrase "Rove Blew CIA Agent's Cover". [That incautiously worded HuffPo headline has now been dropped, though it's available here  and will still be recorded here when the Huffington people wise up and take it down.]  In fact, there seems to be less disagreement between O'Donnell and Rove's lawyer than O'Donnell's huffing suggests--maybe no disagreement at all. Both say Rove talked to Cooper. That presumably means Rove was a source that Cooper was protecting. Neither says that Rove outed Plame, and O'Donnell doesn't think that would be a crime anyway.** So what's the fuss about? Maybe not what Rove told Cooper but what Rove told the grand jury, and whether it was truthful. But O'Donnell doesn't offer any evidence  that Rove committed perjury.  ...

P.S.: Of course it's possible Rove did blow Plame's cover, even if O'Donnell doesn't claim he did and Rove's lawyer denies it. ... Or maybe Rove confirmed what Cooper already knew. ... Tom Maguire leads an expedition into the weeds. ...

P.P.S.: If, as Rove's lawyer told told Newsweek, Rove "signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him," how could he be "the" source Cooper was "protecting" at risk of going to jail? Cooper apparently did talk to the prosecutor about Cheney aide "Scooter" Libby after Libby gave Cooper permission. ...

**: Here's O'Donnell on Hardball from September 30, 2003:

MATTHEWS: Lawrence O'Donnell, you're out here as well. Lawrence, what do you think of this? Give a meter on this.

O'DONNELL: Well, Chris, I think, on a 10 scale, it's about a six. And it is actually going to go down from there, after another month or so of going up, because, at the base of this is an unprovable crime. There will not be a criminal accusation, because if you read the statute, as I've been studying it today, one of the elements that's absolutely necessary is, the person who releases this information must know, actively know, that the CIA is very actively trying to protect and hide the identity of this person.

It will be very easy for amateurs in handling CIA information, like a Karl Rove or someone else at the media end of the White House, to say, I did not know that the CIA was trying to hide her identity.

By the way, I don't think, based on my reading of the statute and the news accounts so far, that this woman fits the definition of the statute either. So I don't think you're going to be able to connect the criminal elements in the case. [Emph. added]