When No News Is Good News 
... the CIA leak scandal seems to be taking a toll on the administration, with nearly 80 percent believing the indictment of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is a serious matter ......Libby was indicted by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak investigation.
... The CIA leak investigation also seems to be dogging the Bush administration. Seventy-nine percent think that Libby's indictment is a serious matter. (Libby has since resigned from the administration.)
.. Democratic pollster Jay Campbell of Hart Research notes that Americans are paying attention to this CIA leak investigation. "They think there is something real here," he says. "This is a really big deal."
These, in their entirety, are the references to the CIA leak.
This, my friends, is good news. I know ... I know ... it's tempting for those of us who are critics of mainstream news coverage to immediately assume the worst and call the reporter on shoddy coverage. But I say: Hold your horses. This is a significant but subtle tipping point in reporting of the Plame fiasco. Let me explain.
In an ongoing, unfolding story, editors always struggle with how much background information to put in a story. You don't want to bore readers shitless who have been keeping up by endlessly recapping; you don't want to lose readers who are just now entering a story. So at some point, you decide that you don't have to (for example) explain in the 34th story about Watergate all the details of the night of the burglary, who the burglars were, etc. You assume - finally, and once and for all - that you will lose no readers because the originating elements of the story have crossed over into common public knowledge. You no longer name the players. You no longer explain the originating crime; you concentrate on the cover-up.
Some editor at NBC News has declared this story common knowledge. My guess is that part of this decision must have arisen from the answers to the polling.
The public, in other words, has gotten it. No need to go into Wilson's visit to Niger, Novak's column outing Plame, who Plame is or what Wilson's op-ed said.
And this is wonderful news, a milestone of sorts, particularly when 80% of those polled are declaring it a serious matter.
KEYWORDS: CIA Leak, Media, Polls
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