The Fitzgerald Spinmeisters

Russ Baker
October 27, 2005

Investigative reporter and essayist Russ Baker is a longtime contributor to TomPaine.com. He is the founder of the Real News Project, a new organization dedicated to producing groundbreaking investigative journalism. He can be reached at russ@russbaker.com.

Perhaps by the time you read this, you will know the outcome of Patrick Fitzgerald’s inquiries into the so-called Valerie Plame Affair. Perhaps, up until that announcement came or comes, you have resisted planning, oh, say, a, cigarettes-in-prison fund for Karl Rove.

But some won’t wait. Everyone with a vested interest in minimizing the significance of any outcome—i.e. anyone who goes down with the good ship Bushypop, from hack legislators to hack pundits to hack political hacks—has spent the past week or so frantically digging through their chest of hoary excuses. Perhaps it is from a subconscious sense of guilt, perhaps it is just good political sense.