As a criminal defense lawyer, I don’t blame Robert Luskin for attacking liberal bloggers in a recent New York Observer interview.
“Mr. Rove, Mr. Luskin said, had fallen victim to partisans and — more importantly — the bloggers who became their enablers … .”
I say this as one of the liberal bloggers writing about Rove. The presumption of innocence is a bedrock of our criminal justice system and representing a client under federal investigation is hard enough without having to endure endless public speculation in which guilt is assumed.
But, media fascination with guilt is hardly limited to bloggers. The phenomenon began with cable TV networks, which have sold the presumption of guilt since O.J. and Jonbenet Ramsey. The truth is that guilt sells in America. The message the networks send is that it’s OK to speculate and make assumptions about guilt. Is it any surprise that bloggers have adopted the practice and trials now take place on the Internet? After all, not everyone can be a television pundit but everyone can play one on the Net.
Where I disagree with Luskin is in castigating bloggers as being “enablers” of a partisan agenda and hacks “masquerading” as journalists without accountability.
“… It seems to me that this story is, if you will, the poster child for the fact that the blogosphere is itself often not accountable, and that there are a universe of folks out there who have got personal or political agendas who were masquerading as news sources.”
Most bloggers are not “masquerading” as journalists. Some really are journalists, while others have no such intentions. While some break news, many more analyze reported news. Bloggers simply can’t be categorized and stereotyped so easily.
While Raw Story and Truthout broke news in the Plame investigation, they are not bloggers, but alternative news sites with their own investigative journalists. Most bloggers covering every detail of the Plame investigation, like Just One Minute, TalkLeft, Empty Wheel and Firedoglake, concentrated on reporting and analyzing the legal developments. Were those of us wrong who speculated Rove would be indicted? Yes. But we also were careful to detail and present our reasoning as our interpretation based upon media reports, statements attributed to Luskin and other attorneys involved in the case and pleadings in the Judith Miller/Matthew Cooper subpoena and Scooter Libby cases. How many mainstream journalists bothered to read every pleading, available transcript and court order in both cases? By and large, it was the bloggers, not the mainstream media, who gathered documents from the courts’ Web sites and made them available for all to read and interpret for themselves. Bloggers also educated readers on the legal process, from how grand juries work to the meaning of criminal statutes and the mechanics of cooperation deals.
Luskin praises the mainstream media and tries to marginalize bloggers, but he’s too late. In its early days, the blogosphere was like the Wild West, where “read at your own risk” was the rule of the day. It is much less so today. Mainstream media now reads and links to bloggers the same way we do them. Just as we call out the MSM for falsely or under-reporting a story, MSM rakes us over the coals when we are wrong. Bloggers call out other bloggers when they make a factual mistake, requiring them to correct or stand by their posts. In other words, bloggers are just as accountable as the MSM to their readers. Nor was it only bloggers who were wrong about Karl Rove’s indictment. For example, on May 8, MSNBC’s David Shuster told Keith Olbermann he was convinced Karl Rove would be indicted.
Luskin’s interview concludes with this comment:
“The scariest thing in the world is to be the lawyer for an innocent client, because all you can do is screw it up,” he said.
The message the public should learn from the investigation of Karl Rove is that innocent people fall prey to grueling and debilitating criminal investigations, that when the federal government decides to bring its awesome powers to bear down upon you, it wreaks havoc with your life and jeopardizes not only your freedom but your job, your reputation and your faith in justice. The grand jury should serve as both a sword and a shield. The truth is, it is too often a tool of the prosecution.
But that won’t be the message because guilt sells in America and innocence remains relegated to the back pages.
Attorney Jeralyn Merritt is creator of the blog TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime, at talkleft.com, and a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors. Members of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors periodically provide op-eds on timely topics of their choice. The board’s purpose is to display fresh voices, original thinking and stimulating analyses representing a broad spectrum of opinions. For more information, contact: Mark Tapscott, Editorial PageEditor, The Washington Examiner, at [email protected].
