by David Greenberg

I've got a piece on TNR Online suggesting that the Libby verdict is bad news for supporters of the free flow of information. (It's a follow-up to a longer piece in the last print edition.) Whatever schadenfreude there might be in seeing an administration heavy laid low, the long-term costs may well be to imperil values that liberals hold dear. In places in my longer article, I worry, I may have sounded as if I were taking issue with all liberals for backing the Fitzgerald, rather than just some. In fact, I'm hardly alone in my concerns. Here's a San Francisco Chronicle story I found on Romenesko in which the widely respected journalist and journalism analyst Tom Rosenstiel offers a similar (though not identical) argument to mine. Many leading investigative reporters such as Sy Hersh also shared these concerns. And several others beat me to the punch in publishing arguments along these lines: Jack Shafer in Slate in 2004; Mort Halperin, in this post on Democracy Arsenal in 2005; Jeff Rosen in TNR here and here; and Mike Kinsley in Time last month. All worth reading.