http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/7/12/14255/5274
The 5 Whys is a technique used in the Analyze phase of the Six Sigma DMAIC methodology, a tool for improving the quality of various processes. By repeatedly asking the question "Why", you can peel away the layers of symptoms which can lead to the root cause of a problem.
In observing the media go after Karl Rove like a pack of sharks in a feeding frenzy, it becomes apparent that no one has done this. There are several more "whys" to be asked, and no one is asking them.
This all started on July 6, 2003, when Joseph Wilson published an op-ed in the New York Times concerning the famous "Sixteen Words" used by President Bush in his State of the Union address that year. Mr. Wilson suggested that the White House should have known that the Sixteen Words were not true, because he himself had traveled to the African state of Niger at the request of the CIA a year before the speech and debunked the intelligence. Mr. Wilson also appeared on Meet the Press that day, and was the subject of an article by Richard Leiby and Walter Pincus in the Washington Post. His "revelation" caused quite a stir.
According to a long profile of the Wilsons that appeared in Vanity Fair (January, 2004), Wilson was caught off guard three days later when he received a phone call from Robert Novak, who, according to Wilson, said he'd been told by a C.I.A. source that Wilson's wife worked for the agency. "Can you confirm or deny?" Wilson recalls Novak as saying. Wilson says he did neither.
On July 14, Novak published a column in which he revealed the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie, noting that she was "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction ." This was important because Valerie Wilson, AKA Valerie Plame, was at one time a covert CIA operative stationed in Europe. The exposure of a covert government agent could violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, leading to a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. On July 24, the CIA reported "possible violations of criminal law" to Attorney General John Ashcroft, via a reply to Democratic House member John Conyers, who had asked the agency to look into the matter.
To many in the Democratic Party, the "outing" of Ambassador Wilson's wife by a Known Conservative appeared to be an act of revenge or spite, perhaps emanating from the White House itself. They demanded an investigation. They got one. Attorney General Ashcroft recused himself from the leak investigation, and James Comey, Deputy Attorney General, appointed Patrick Fitzgerald, a U.S. Attorney, as "special" counsel.
No one will accuse Fitzgerald of having failed to pursue the case aggressively. He has sought testimony from Administration figures including Karl Rove, from several reporters, and we don't even know who else. In addition, the Fitzgerald investigation has been remarkably leak-free. Other than through public documents filed with the court, virtually no one has been able to discover anything about what has happened before the Grand Jury.
The most curious aspect of the case so far is that the New York Times, which had been among the loudest in calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the "leak," has since become the strongest force blocking the investigation. Times reporter Judith Miller was found in contempt of court on October 1, 2004, for refusing to disclose the source who leaked the fact that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA operative. She was sentenced to 18 months in jail, a sentence she began serving last week following a series of appeals. What makes this especially ironic is that Judith Miller never wrote an article concerning the matter.
The case had largely gone off the radar until July 1 of this year, when MSNBC analyst Lawrence O'Donnell, on the McLaughlin Group program, stated that Bush campaign guru Karl Rove was the source for Matt Cooper, a Time Magazine reporter who had also been subpoenaed by Fitzgerald. O'Donnell followed that up with a piece on the Huffington Post, stating that, "It should break wide open this week."
And so it did. Yesterday the White House press corps swarmed over Press Secretary Scott McClellan, putting on a show of Adversary Journalism rivaling any that we have seen. Democrats and the media - to the extent that is not redundant - are in full-throated roar, demanding everything from Rove's sacking to his tar-and-feathering on the White House lawn.
Why? Well, to hear Democrats tell it, Rove "outed" Plame to exact revenge on Ambassador Wilson.
Why? Because Ambassador Wilson had made life difficult for the White House by exposing Bush's "lies" in the famous Sixteen Words.
And with this, the media and the Democrats are finished analyzing the case and are ready to hang Karl Rove.
But we really only have two of the "Whys." If we are going to have quality journalism here, shouldn't we try to answer at least 5 Whys?
Why did Ambassador Wilson go on television and write op-ed columns to discredit the Bush Administration? Hadn't he been the last U.S. diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein prior to the first Gulf War? Hadn't he been hailed as a "hero" by the first President Bush for his actions in Baghdad, after sheltering more than a hundred Americans at the US embassy?
Well, it seems that in the years since leaving the career civil service, Joseph Wilson had become something of a partisan Democrat. As Washington Post writer Richard Leiby noted on October 2, 2003, "Wilson makes no secret of being a left-leaning Democrat and intends to endorse Sen. John F. Kerry for president. Wilson, a former ambassador to Gabon who served as an Africa expert in the second Clinton administration, has long been friendly with leading Democrats." Writing in the Washington Times, Helle Dale quotes Wilson as saying, "Neo-conservatives and religious conservatives have hijacked this administration, and I consider myself on a personal mission to destroy both."
Well, there are a lot of partisan Democrats who would say they are on a mission to destroy the Administration. But not many could appear simultaneously in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and on Meet the Press to discredit the "Sixteen Words" from the State of the Union speech.
Why would three prominent media organizations suddenly decide in July that this very partisan Democrat was just the fellow all three needed to hear from? And on the same day, no less.
That's a good question. Things like that usually happen because someone is out there "pitching the story" to the media. In this case, that person is most likely a very partisan Democrat... someone who knows Wilson and Plame, and also knows a lot of reporters; someone who could pick up the phone and get Meet the Press producers and New York Times reporters to pay attention.
That leaves us with one unanswered Why.
Why would the New York Times stonewall the special prosecutor they themselves asked for, to the point that Judith Miller would go to jail before revealing who told her about Wilson, Plame, and the CIA? Judith Miller never even wrote an article; what the New York Times ran was an op-ed written by Wilson himself. Can it be that the person she talked to wasn't an "Administration Official" at all, but a Democratic political operative setting up a "media hit" on Bush?
"Finish your beer. There are sober kids in India."
-- rwmartin