{"id":22679,"date":"2005-06-30T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:50:24","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T06:50:24","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T06:50:24","slug":"matt_judy_show_first_amendment_matters_again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/06\/30\/matt_judy_show_first_amendment_matters_again\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt & Judy Show: First Amendment Matters Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

RUSH: It\u2019s the Matt and Judy Show: Matt Cooper, TIME Magazine, and Judith Miller of the New York Times. They have until next week to prove to a judge why they shouldn\u2019t go to jail or else turn over their notes that a prosecutor wants. TIME, Incorporated said today — Norman Pearlstine, their executive editor, said — that they will comply with the court order to deliver the notes of a reporter threatened with jail in the probe of the leak of a CIA officer\u2019s name. His name is Matt Cooper. He\u2019s married to Mandy Grunwald, by the way, and he\u2019s a very funny guy. These reporters all get together and have these amateur comedy nights now and then, and he\u2019s always either winning these things or at the top of the list. But this is the case over the probe of the leak of Valerie Plame\u2019s name, the CIA officer. “The New York Times said it was deeply disappointed in TIME Magazine\u2019s move, which came just a few days after the US Supreme Court rejected the journalist\u2019s appeal. The US district judge here Thomas Hogan is threatening to jail Matt Cooper, TIME\u2019s White House co-respondent, and Judith Miller, co-respondent of the New York Times,” I\u2019ve always wanted to pronounce that word that way, “for contempt for refusing to disclose their sources.” Now, in a statement Norman Pearlstine (who, again, is the executive editor of TIME), said it “believes the Supreme Court has limited express freedom in ways that will have a chilling effect on our work and that may damage the free flow of information that is so necessary in a democratic society.” It also said that despite those concerns, it\u2019ll turn over the records with the special counsel investigating the leak. Said Pearlstine, “The same Constitution that protects the freedom of the press requires obedience to final decisions of the courts and respect for their rules and judgments; that TIME, Inc., strongly disagrees with the courts provides no immunity.”<\/line>It is as I said yesterday: The First Amendment hasn\u2019t meant a whole lot lately. Campaign finance reform came along and limited the free speech of citizens <\/emphasize>and the media was all for that. Now it\u2019s being turned on them. These are the kind of things you would hope would wake them up as to what\u2019s happening with the judicial branch in this country. So Mr. Pearlstine acknowledges that: Hey, Constitution is the Constitution. The judge is a judge; a court\u2019s a court; a ruling is a rule. Just because we disagree with it doesn\u2019t mean anything. There\u2019s also something he didn\u2019t say, and that is that the prosecution or the court can really <\/emphasize>lay out a huge fine as well if they don\u2019t comply — and that would, of course, have ramifications, stockholders, stock price, depending on the size of the fine. Now, that Little Pinch, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. — his dad was Punch; he\u2019s called “the Little Pinch” — Pinch, publisher of the New York Times said, “‘We are deeply disappointed by TIME\u2019s decision to deliver the subpoenaed records.\u2019 He noted that one of their reporters served 40 days in jail in 1978 in a similar dispute. ‘Our focus is now on our own reporter, Judith Miller, and in supporting her during this difficult time.\u2019 The judge yesterday agreed to hold a hearing next week to consider arguments against jailing these two, but he expressed skepticism that any new arguments would change his mind. ‘It\u2019s curiouser [sic] and curiouser. I don\u2019t understand why the reporters are asking for more time,\u2019 the judge said. ‘Seems to me the time has come. Much more delay and we will be at the end of the grand jury.'” <\/line>Novak has been drawn into this, too, because some are saying that, “Hey, Bob, what kind of conversations did you have with this special prosecutor that led to all this?” And Novak said (summarized), “I didn\u2019t have any. I\u2019m not talking about it because to think they\u2019re going to jail because of me is absurd, and it\u2019s not the case,” and he feels very disappointed that they are going to jail. I, frankly, think it\u2019s absurd, too. I know it\u2019s the law and the judge can rule as he rules, but I\u2019m going to tell you something, folks: The press does have constitutional protection. I know the Supreme Court has ruled that they can\u2019t protect sources in criminal cases, and that\u2019s what\u2019s governing this. This is a criminal case. This is the release of a name of a CIA “super-secret agent.” But I just, something about this jailing journalists and this sort of thing. There\u2019s another case out there, and I just barely mentioned this earlier this week, and this one is far more troubling to me than this one is. Wen Ho Lee, who worked at the Los Alamos nuclear facility out in New Mexico, and if you remember the case, this guy based on news reporting alone was assumed to have been a traitor. This guy, we all thought this guy was a traitor sending nuclear secrets back to Red China, the ChiComs, and the reason for this? Four reports — Washington Post, New York Times among them — and their confidential anonymous sources, and they ran with this, and they went to trial, and it turns out that Wen Ho Lee was no more guilty of treason than your pet dog. <\/line><\/p>\n

The judge, in something that\u2019s unprecedented, apologized from the bench to Wen Ho Lee and said that the nation owed him an apology for what he had been put through, and now there is a civil suit against these four journalists for these anonymous sources and destroying his career and reputation and life. That, you know, I\u2019m far more sensitive to that than to this. The special prosecutor in the Matt and Judy affair hasn\u2019t even broad any charges against anybody! It\u2019s been going on for two years. Everybody knows who the woman\u2019s name is now, and Joe Wilson, the husband here, helped publicize here by posing for a picture in Vanity Fair inside their sports car while she\u2019s wearing a scarf and sunglasses driving around saying, “Look at me! Look at me! Notice me! Notice me!” You know, to say that these people seek privacy is idiotic. I think this is a little over the top sending these people to jail for something like this when you compare it to some of the other things out there that are going on, but it is not unprecedented. There have been reporters go to jail for failing to reveal sources, and I don\u2019t mean to act na?ve about that. But things like this Wen Ho Lee case, and I\u2019m holding that story, as I say, in reserve, folks, because when you\u2019ve got reporters using anonymous sources, close to the investigation or close to the source, whatever, that end up being totally<\/emphasize> incorrect, there is a course of action against that, and Mr. Lee, I think Wen Ho Lee is pondering it — and maybe a court is. I\u2019ll have to dig the story back out. But that\u2019s something I think that\u2019s pretty serious. <\/line>BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/p>\n

RUSH: Ed in Dayton, Ohio, you\u2019re next. Welcome to the program, sir.<\/line>CALLER: Hi there, Rush.<\/line>RUSH: Hi.<\/line>CALLER: Glad to talk to you.<\/line>RUSH: Thank you, sir.<\/line>CALLER: I\u2019ve got a point about — a moment ago you were talking about Wen Ho Lee.<\/line>RUSH: I was, yes.<\/line>CALLER: I think he was basically the cover after the Clinton administration had basically allowed China to get access to the W-80 warhead data, and then they allowed Loral to sell the warhead BUS technology? I think they had to do something to look like they cared about national security, so basically they threw the book at him through reporters.<\/line>RUSH: Could be. Somebody leaked information to these reporters that focused on Wen Ho Lee. It was about some missing tapes. It was about the missing secret tapes from the Los Alamos facility. I don\u2019t want to even speculate on who it might have been. These are unnamed sources; these are anonymous sources, and you just don\u2019t know. That is the whole point. The point is they were dead wrong, and they destroyed this guy\u2019s life for a while and ruined his reputation, and it was all baloney. It was all total BS. As to your point that it might have been Clinton going after Wen Ho Lee because of Loral and the campaign finance problem they had with Chinese money, I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s the case because the mainstream press didn\u2019t find anything wrong with that to begin with. The majority of mainstream press coverage about campaign donations from China and the Loral Space people helping out Chinese rocket industry, missile industry, didn\u2019t make big news. Clinton was not really routinely questioned about it so if there were those concerns in the Clinton administration it would have to have been for historical legacy purposes because it wasn\u2019t a big deal other than in the New Media — and, of course, the press and the Clinton administration, Democrats back then, as they do now, consider the new media a bunch of crackpots and not worth anybody\u2019s time. So it would be tough to nail down who these unnamed sources are. One thing you can be sure of, if it is somebody in the Clinton camp, there\u2019s a lot of insulation between whoever it really was and the president himself. <\/line> Mr. Snerdley has sent me a note here. He says, “With your experiences with the mainstream press, how can you remain so objective and not want to see some of them tossed in jail?” I think jail time is for people that need to be distanced from mainstream society. You know, jail time is for people that commit crimes against other people, and they need to be sequestered for the protection of society at large and this sort of thing. I don\u2019t really regard journalists and their anonymous sources in a circumstance like this especially with all that\u2019s known about this Valerie Plame case. We know who she is. We already know who she is. Judith Miller never even wrote a story about this, Mr. Snerdley, and she\u2019s threatened with jail here over not revealing a source. She didn\u2019t even write a story about it; she was preparing one but she never wrote it and so she\u2019s caught up going to jail here. I think it was ridiculous to send Martha Stewart to jail. There are other ways of meting out punishment to these kind of people. But this is just over the top. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m being inconsistent at all. I think, you know, whether it be eminent domain or whether it be the Ten Commandments, government is just simply too big and it\u2019s too powerful. It\u2019s just getting out of hand and it\u2019s getting more and more so every day, and I think it\u2019s a dangerous thing when in politics we end up wanting our enemies to go to jail. That\u2019s not the way to deal with them and that\u2019s not a way to get rid of them. You defeat them in the arena of ideas or you defeat them in other ways. But something about this, she didn\u2019t even write a story. We know who this woman is. We know this woman is a publicity seeker herself. We know that her husband is a publicity seeker. We know that her husband and herself arranged for this duel spread at Vanity Fair with themselves pictured — even though she\u2019s wearing sunglasses and a scarf. If anybody needs to be the focus of legal action it\u2019s those two, if you ask me. Joe Wilson and his Niger report on yellowcake uranium and so forth. But I don\u2019t know what purpose would be served. “It may have a chilling effect on other journalists, Rush. You\u2019ll understand.” No, not in this case. The Wen Ho Lee case, yeah. Wholly different situation. Totally <\/emphasize>different situation. Beside Judith Miller is not even the one that released her name; Novak did. Matt Cooper did not release her name. They\u2019re just two that haven\u2019t divulged their source. Now, look, I know the law is the law, and the Supreme Court back I think \u201972 or \u201979 said that you can\u2019t withhold the identity of the sources in criminal cases. If you do, you face contempt and a fine. You go to jail. I know the law\u2019s the law, but this is a bit over the top for me.<\/line>END TRANSCRIPT<\/line><\/p>\n

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RUSH: It\u2019s the Matt and Judy Show: Matt Cooper, TIME Magazine, and Judith Miller of the New York Times. They have until next week to prove to a judge why they shouldn\u2019t go to jail or else turn over their notes that a prosecutor wants. TIME, Incorporated said today — Norman Pearlstine, their executive editor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMatt & Judy Show: First Amendment Matters Again - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2005\/06\/30\/matt_judy_show_first_amendment_matters_again\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Matt & Judy Show: First Amendment Matters Again - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: It\u2019s the Matt and Judy Show: Matt Cooper, TIME Magazine, and Judith Miller of the New York Times. 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