Echoes of Watergate: Rove, Plame, and the freedom of the press

I seem to be alternating quite a bit in recent days between the Miller-Cooper-Plame saga and the Supreme Court, and I'm back tonight with more on the former. As some of you have have seen, I've been having an ongoing discussion with a couple of my readers (see here and here) on whether or not, or at least to what extent, journalists should be protected from prosecution with respect to their use of anonymous sources. It's more a matter of nuanced difference than fundamental disagreement, however. I tend to take an absolute stance on the freedom of the press while others argue that, for example, journalists should not be permitted to protect anonymous sources in cases where a felony has been committed and there is no obvious public interest in maintaining the cover of anonymity. Actually, though, I'm still wrestling with this issue. Although it seems like a mere technicality, with one journalist in jail and no apparent harm done, this case brings to light the broader issue of the place of journalism in democracy, both the freedom of the press and the degree to which that freedom may be limited for the sake of the public interest. I encourage all of you to think seriously about this issue, and, should you care to do so, to weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments section of this post.

In the meantime, I also encourage you to check out The Carpetbagger Report's take on Karl Rove's possible role in the story. (I've addressed it briefly here.) This is a separate issue, to be sure. However, despite relatively lukewarm coverage in the press thus far, the ramifications of Rove's involvement in the "outing" of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent would be enormous. We all know what can happen, after all, when some of the president's men are involved in a crime.