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I was genuinely quite pleased with Byron York’s response to the Plame Panel (which can be seen here on CSPAN).   I’d just have to wonder if he was actually there if I hadn’t seen him myself.  The first two paragraphs he seems obsessed with my day job — never mentioned during the panel at all — and then asserts that with my history I would of course only be consumed with the villains of the CIA leak case.  My speech included the exactly one (count ‘em one) sentence about the BushCo. villains of the story; the rest of it was devoted to introducing the heroes, my primary objective.  I hope when everyone from the panel kept calling on poor Byron we weren’t waking him up but I think it may be so.

If he was sleeping it was probably for the best, because everything that was said was a complete challenge to everything he wanted to write.  As Emptywheel notes: 

Byron didn’t tell his readers that I told him at least half of the people on the panel, and probably more, had admitted we thought Rove was cooperating (as in big-C, anything you say to Karl Rove can and will be held against you in a court of law). Or that we Plame bloggers, Christy, Jane, and I, were all pretty realistic about the possibility that Karl wouldn’t get indicted. For that matter, Byron didn’t mention that Murray suggested this whole thing may fizzle. You see, I think Byron would have a hard time admitting to his readers that the Plame panel had anticipated that something like what has happened might occur. Because, you see, it might suggest that the rest of our speculations may come to pass, too. That Karl Rove may flip, that the Conservative project may have started eating its own, that Karl can’t even live up to their standards of loyalty, much less ours. Byron was very tenuous about the larger meaning of cooperation, as he has been in his reporting on Luskin’s statement. Perhaps it suggests possibilities he’d rather not think about?

"Lather, rinse, repeat" is more appropriate to the handling of hair care products than the practice of journalism, but often there’s little else you can do with GOP taking points.  And I certainly understand how Byron could get confused. 

I was happy with one aspect of York’s piece.  He seemed to take no objection to my claim that Joe Wilson is a hero, unlike Wankette.  I expected this to be the predictable response from the NRO.  Maybe nobody wants to be the next Ana Marie Cox?  Because I can assure you, that’s what would have happened.  Anyone who wants to publicly question that fact had better have more war bona fides than just a full head of hair or the wilingness to suck on a vodka bottle for fun and profit, or we’ll have us a field day.

Nice piece, Byron.  Next time, feel free to join us.

(BTW if anyone has files of the Plame Panel that can be loaded on YouTube I would love to have them.) 

(photo by Snorfbat)