The Laughing Wolf

An American Working For Iraq

Of course, if this was an outlet of the Old Media, the headline would read: Reporter and Democratic Congressional Aide Was Agent For Iraq. Quite accurate, and quite in keeping with the spirit of the coverage being given this story by the Old Media. Yet, we can and will do better.

The facts are that Susan Lindauer has been arrested and charged with being an unregistered agent and violations of financial regulations. She has not been charged with being a spy or anything else on that level.

The facts are that she also got her start as a reporter working for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The reaction of said paper was to go with a story headlined Accused Spy Is Cousin Of Bush Staffer. Her work at the paper got a brief mention buried in the middle of a string of jobs starting with Fortune and ending most prominently with Fox. In fact, they went out of their way to mention Fox at least twice, and ended with the now-obligatory quote about how she appeared to be an ordinary person, with the implication that of course they could not be guilty. No discussion of her work at the paper, and a blatant attempt to bury the same. No surprise.

No surprise either that almost all of the major media has gone with the “Republican” distant relation slant, ignoring the fact that he helped bring her down, and/or presented it without mentioning that she was a long-time Democratic staffer. For some good info on this, go check out the links here, here, and here. Whizbang is offering up not only that, but some good info that details her involvement in the Lockerbie trial.

The New Media is working to get the story right, though there is some sloppiness that needs to be corrected. She has not been charged with spying. She has been charged with working with Iraqi Intelligence as an unregistered agent, and with violations of financial transaction statutes. Now, other charges can be filed later, but this is a start and we do need to make clear that agent does not have to mean spy. What does matter is aid and comfort, and when, where, how, and to whom matter very much. Eugene Volokh has some comments here.

The Old Media is screwing itself into the ground on this one, and it is quite likely to hurt it severely in the long run. Attempts to go back and change things to pretend otherwise are not helping, and are being noted and logged. The American public has a long history of doing things like pulling for the underdog, and also of being very unforgiving of those it perceives as having lied to it in order to protect themselves.

This also ties in very strongly to work done by Blogfather Joe Katzman on Saddam’s Media War. If you have not read these stories, you need to go do so. Now. This is important.

Hat tips this morning go to Blogfather Joe and Cardinal Puppilieu, who have both done an outstanding job of pointing the way to a lot of good information.

This story is likely to be the tip of the iceberg, and there is probably more to it as well. Keep a close eye on it, as digging into it may well reveal some very nasty things. Nasty enough that she may not be the only one charged, and that the charges and penalties may go very high indeed.

-30-