Now that the Libby trial is over (with the wait for sentencing and appeals just begun), it is worth analyzing how the media is reporting the significance of what has taken place. The New York Times's initial stories focus tightly on the actual trial with one story discussing how the jury felt Libby was a fall guy yet little other significance mentioned.
The Washington Post's coverage this afternoon, however, speculates what this means for the Bush administration. Dan Balz's story is aptly headlined Libby Verdict Deals Blow to Bush Administration. I see it as evidence that the mainstream media is adopting some of the frames and rhetoric we have been using for years, and hope that it is a sign of reportage to come.
(More after the jump.)
From the start, Balz's piece contextualizes the trial within a larger pattern of administration problems.
The conviction of former White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby today dealt another blow to President Bush's beleaguered administration and marked the latest chapter in a record of mistakes, missteps and setbacks growing out of an Iraq war policy that went badly awry.
Placing Libby's perjury in the context of the war is of course something we and many blogs have done for years. Establishing that frame in the mainstream media is crucial, and much more work needs to be done. This article is evidence that it is working.
Balz continues:
The Libby verdict comes at an especially difficult time for the administration. Revelations about substandard living conditions and bureaucratic roadblocks for some wounded outpatient soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center have thrown the administration on the defensive over the sensitive issue of how the government treats its war veterans.
At the same time, the administration is coming under fire in Congress over the firing of a group of U.S. attorneys for what critics say were political reasons. Several of those former U.S. attorneys were testifying on Capitol Hill as the Libby verdict was announced at the federal courthouse a few blocks away.
This is where I begin feeling particularly encouraged. Balz builds a narrative of sustained administration malfeasance with significant consequences. The wording infers the administration is not merely incompetent but also unethical and perhaps criminal. Nothing new for Daily Kos, but in the pages of the Post (and in a news story not written by Dan Froomkin), this is an indication that the narrative we have developed over the years is being adopted by the mainstream media. (That the Post hosted a chat with Jeralyn Merritt this afternoon is encouraging because not only the frames but the actual bloggers are now seen as worthy of attention on this matter.)
There is much more to the story that I will not quote to avoid stepping over boundaries of fair use, but the usual he said/he said balance issues here leave a bipartisan impression that the administration has been up to no good.
The verdict may well produce predictable political reactions on the left and right, with the left seeing it as vindication of their argument that the administration has gone to any lengths to challenge critics of his policy and the right seeing Fitzgerald as a runaway prosecutor who gained a conviction without charging anyone for the underlying crime of illegally revealing the identity of a covert intelligence official.
"I think as a historical matter it goes down as part of an Iraq policy gone bad," said a Republican lawyer, who asked not to be identified in order to speak more freely. "They tried to salvage the policy when criticized. They overreached and ended up with a serious black eye because of it."
Democrat Geoffrey Garin argued that the outcome of the Libby trial only adds to the political argument from his party that the Republicans should be turned out of the White House in 2008, to complete a clean sweep in Washington that began with the 2006 midterm elections.
"For the general electorate, this just adds to the feeling that there's something really rotten at the core of this administration and that the country needs a pretty big change," he said.
In the reporting done by Amy Goldstein and Carol D. Leonnig in what appears to the the Post's lead story on the trial, the context of the Vice-President's office was discussed.
Testimony and evidence revealed that the vice president dictated precise talking points he wanted Libby and other aides to use to rebut Wilson's accusations against the White House, helped select which journalists would be contacted and worked with Bush to declassify secret intelligence reports on Iraqi weapons that he believed would contradict Wilson's claims.
"There is a cloud over what the vice president did," Fitzgerald told jurors in the prosecution's closing arguments. "That's not something we put there. That cloud is not something you can pretend is not there."
The greater context is again mentioned; Balz concludes his piece by saying this trial is part of a much larger story. That the Post recognizes this is encouraging, and indicative of what the mainstream media may decide to report in the coming weeks and months.
UPDATE (8:50PM PT): The New York Times has an article up analyzing what this means for Cheney. A key paragraph:
"The trial has been death by 1,000 cuts for Cheney," said Scott Reed, a Republican strategist. "It’s hurt him inside the administration. It’s hurt him with the Congress, and it’s hurt his stature around the world because it has shown a lot of the inner workings of the White House. It peeled the bark right off the way they operate."
Not only does the press have a narrative, but Republicans are bailing on the VP.