Only here, in the democratic power center of the world, could leaking and stonewalling simultaneously be art forms worthy of the Smithsonian Institution.
But it’s true. In fact, this is the Golden Age of leaking and stonewalling. We are blessed with a plethora of new vehicles for leaking: the Internet, pagers, mobile phones and wireless personal digital assistants, to name a few.
As for stonewalling, it’s just a matter of killing a computer file here and there and then claiming it’s an unfortunate computer screw up.
Aether Systems Inc. and Metrocall Inc. are doing their part, supplying reporters at the Democratic and Republican national conventions with interactive wireless devices.
The news media lately has been awash in leaking and stonewalling stories; that is, stories about how information-and misinformation-of possible import is born and buried.
Take Federal Communications Commission Chairman Bill Kennard. He’s hot under the collar about alleged leaks to reporters about a staff draft proposal to conditionally approve AT&T Corp.’s purchase of MediaOne Group. Kennard means business: He’s asked the FCC inspector general to probe the matter.
But maybe that’s not such a hot idea. Some folks apparently believe the No. 1 telecom regulator is the problem.
“Like his predecessors, the chairman rather clearly supervises the systematic leaking of highly detailed information about FCC actions,” Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman told RCR sister publication Electronic Media.
The Clinton administration, which knows a thing or two about leaking and stonewalling, laid down the law with Israeli and Palestinian delegations at last week’s Mideast summit at Camp David: no mobile phones. The Clinton directive, like others he’s issued, was superficial if not downright meaningless. Turns out you can’t get decent cellular signal in Maryland’s Catoctin mountains anyway.
Then there’s Charles G. Bakaly III, mouthpiece for former independent counsel Ken Starr during a Clinton-Lewinsky sex scandal that embarrassed a bunch of folks but otherwise ended with little legal consequence. Bakaly may become the one casualty of the mess, having been accused of making misleading statements in a separate probe of leaking.
From most indications, the White House was leaking like a sieve during the Lewinsky affair. But, unlike alleged Bakaly leaks, the administration’s were proper, you see.
The White House’s leaking prowess is matched only by its steely stonewalling strategy. Last week, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth blasted Clintonites for failing to produce a boatload of missing e-mails on inappropriate White House gathering of FBI records and for withholding documents reportedly linking Democratic campaign contributions to Commerce Department trade mission participation.
The moral of the story: While Al Gore may not have invented the Internet, perhaps we can credit the veep with discovering the `delete’ button.
