The McCranky leak tale has Digby wondering why reporters are so keen to "protect people who lie to them and use them for nefarious political purposes"

"Had either of the leaks probes found McCain guilty, in all likelihood he would have been recommended for censure by the Ethics Committee, but also possibly faced expulsion by the Senate or charged with perjury for having lied under oath. As it was, the worst that happened is that those observing McCain reevaluated the senator. Said one source close to the leaks investigation, 'It pricked the balloon I had that McCain might have had integrity.'"

-- Sahil Mahtani, in "McCain First, Second, and Always," in The New Republic

"Golly, if only we'd known. . . .

"I will never understand why reporters think it's so important that they protect people who lie to them and use them for nefarious political reasons. They sit idly by while a man like McCain creates a completely phony persona, wines and dines them and treats them to his 'unvarnished' off-the-record musings all the while at least some of them (and their editors) know that he is completely full of shit.

"He's run for president twice now. And it took until four days before the election for this story of McCain's perfidious treatment of his fellow senators and cover-up of his crimes to surface? A story about leaks to the press? Can we all see the problem here?"

-- Digby, in a post yesterday, "The Scooter Paradigm"

by Ken

Howie reported Saturday about New Republic reporter-researcher Sahil Mahtani's shocking story suggesting very powerfully that at the time of the Senate Ethics Committee's investigation of the Keating Five scandal, Sen. John McCain orchestrated a series of leaks that "essentially deflected public attention away from McCain and toward his colleagues" -- and "created 'a presumption of guilt' among the others, said one government official."

Those leaks, which were illegal whoever was responsible for them, almost certainly saved McCranky's sorry political career. If the senator was in fact the source of the leaks, they should have led to his expulsion from the Senate and possible indictment for perjury.

Mahtani, you'll recall, gathered devastating (to McCranky) information about two investigations conducted at the time: a private one by FBI super-agent Bud Hall requested from the General Accounting Office's Office of Special Investigations by Senate Ethics Committee Chairman Howell Heflin, and a public one by New York lawyer Peter Fleming in his capacity as Temporary Special Independent Counsel for the Senate.

His revelations make clear that there was little doubt at the time that the young Young Johnny McCranky was the source of the leaks, and that this wasn't exactly secret. Just about everyone in D.C. seems to have been convinced. The only thing that saved him, apparently, was the absence of "smoking gun"-type evidence of his guilt.

Now Digby has revisited the story, wondering how it happens that we didn't know about any of this at the time -- or, indeed, at any time before Saturday.

The fact is that there are some people who knew the truth about this from the beginning and they're called "reporters." They knew then and they know now that they were being leaked to by a lying creep who was trying to cover his ass. And, in their minds, that's exactly the same as protecting the identity of some low level whistleblower at the SEC who discovers that powerful people are committing crimes. Nobody said a word.

When Digby latches onto a big -- and usually neglected -- question, the argument really needs to be read in full. I think this is a really important one, and besides, it's a treat to read. So here it is:

The Scooter Paradigm

by digby

We've already talked about these latest revelations about McCain and the Keating Five, but I want to look at it from a slightly different angle.

Yes, yes, McCain is a lying piece of work who has spent his career basically acting the character of the heroic Top Gun maverick who flew a little bit too close to the sun, got burned and then spent the rest of his career pretending to seek redemption by becoming a reformer of the system that almost destroyed him. It's crap. He's corrupt, always has been.

But this latest doesn't just indict McCain. It indicts the press corps too:

[T]he Ethics Committee's was not the only investigation into the scandal. There were two other probes at the time that got barely any public attention--both of which largely focused on McCain himself. These were probes into illicit leaks about the proceedings of the Ethics Committee--leaks that repeatedly benefited McCain and hurt his Keating Five colleagues. One of those senators described the leaks at the time as a "violation of ethical behavior at least as serious as anything of which we senators have been accused."

The leaks, if they were coming from a senator, were also illegal. All five senators--including McCain--had testified under oath and under the U.S. penal code that the leaks did not come from their camps. The leaks were also prohibited by rules of the Senate Ethics Committee; according to the rules of the Senate, anyone caught leaking such information could face expulsion from the body. These, then, were not the usual Washington disclosures: Discovered, they could have stopped the career of any Washington politician in his tracks.

Golly, if only we'd known.

I'm going to call this The Scooter Paradigm, wherein the press reports stories that feature the press (sometimes even themselves personally) as if they are reporting on tribal chieftains in Afghanistan. In other words, as if they are reporting on something foreign and unknowable. The fact is that there are some people who knew the truth about this from the beginning and they're called "reporters." They knew then and they know now that they were being leaked to by a lying creep who was trying to cover his ass. And, in their minds, that's exactly the same as protecting the identity of some low level whistleblower at the SEC who discovers that powerful people are committing crimes. Nobody said a word.

I will never understand why reporters think it's so important that they protect people who lie to them and use them for nefarious political reasons. They sit idly by while a man like McCain creates a completely phony persona, wines and dines them and treats them to his "unvarnished" off-the-record musings all the while at least some of them (and their editors) know that he is completely full of shit.

He's run for president twice now. And it took until four days before the election for this story of McCain's perfidious treatment of his fellow senators and cover-up of his crimes to surface? A story about leaks to the press? Can we all see the problem here?

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