The Story That Won't Die
Yesterday afternoon, the Department of Justice delivered over 2,000 documents to the Congressional committees investigating the firings of eight US Attorneys. The unusual dump (on a Monday, no less) had been delayed by the White House over the weekend. Although apparently some of the documents tend to buttress the official DOJ line that the firings were for performance reasons (failure to prosecute more obscenity cases and/or border crime cases), those documents also clearly show a department scurrying to retake the publicity spin. From today's Los Angeles Times:
The documents show that Justice Department officials have been scrambling over the last two months to control the amount of damaging fallout and negative publicity from the widening scandal, even lamenting at one point that "we just want the stories to die."
"The attorney general is extremely upset with the stories on the U.S. Attys this morning," Brian Roehrkasse, a department spokesman, e-mailed to his boss, Scolinos, and D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff before he abruptly resigned this month.
Roehrkasse added that Gonzales "also thought some of DAG's [McNulty's] statements were inaccurate…. He wants to know what we can do from a comms [communications] perspective. I suggested a clearly worded op-ed and reaching out to ed [editorial] boards who will write in the coming days."
"I think from a straight news perspective we just want the stories to die." [Emphasis added]
That is, after all, the most important thing: that this administration control the news given the public. Confirmation of this tactic came in the Libby trial when an aide to Vice President Cheney admitted that whenever things got too hot, the right people (including Mr. Cheney himself) were carefully positioned on Meet the Press, where Tim Russert could be counted on to assist in getting the proper message out.
This time, however, the tactic doesn't appear to be working, at least not yet.
The documents show that Justice Department officials have been scrambling over the last two months to control the amount of damaging fallout and negative publicity from the widening scandal, even lamenting at one point that "we just want the stories to die."
"The attorney general is extremely upset with the stories on the U.S. Attys this morning," Brian Roehrkasse, a department spokesman, e-mailed to his boss, Scolinos, and D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff before he abruptly resigned this month.
Roehrkasse added that Gonzales "also thought some of DAG's [McNulty's] statements were inaccurate…. He wants to know what we can do from a comms [communications] perspective. I suggested a clearly worded op-ed and reaching out to ed [editorial] boards who will write in the coming days."
"I think from a straight news perspective we just want the stories to die." [Emphasis added]
That is, after all, the most important thing: that this administration control the news given the public. Confirmation of this tactic came in the Libby trial when an aide to Vice President Cheney admitted that whenever things got too hot, the right people (including Mr. Cheney himself) were carefully positioned on Meet the Press, where Tim Russert could be counted on to assist in getting the proper message out.
This time, however, the tactic doesn't appear to be working, at least not yet.
Labels: Free Press, Justice Department
posted by Diane at 4:16 AM
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