Playing with fire

Does any reporter -- I’m not talking about the Dick Morrises or John McCormacks of the world here, I mean real reporters -- seriously think that the possibility that Joe Sestak was offered a job is a legitimate topic for criminal investigation? 

They all seem to be talking about it, but I find it hard to believe anyone actually thinks there’s anything scandalous here.  If they do, they’re awfully recent converts: they didn’t act all outraged when potential political candidates were offered jobs by previous administrations, and they didn’t seem to care about Sestak’s allegations when he made them back in February. The fact that Joe Sestak won his primary doesn’t make the job offer any more inappropriate, yet suddenly some reporters are behaving as though this is Teapot Dome.

So why the sudden flurry of interest in this story?  I suspect it’s a few things -- none of them legitimate reasons to obsess over something you didn’t think was significant four months ago, or four years ago. First, the right-wing media is pushing this, hard. Second: There hasn’t been an investigation of the Obama administration yet, and the press loves investigations. Particularly of Democrats. Third, it’s become the kind of process game the media love to play: The White House is in a box. How will it get out?  The fact that the box is imaginary doesn’t concern them; they just like to make people squirm. Fourth, many of them have gotten it into their heads that there should be an investigation not because there was likely any illegality, but because the Obama administration has talked about having high ethical standards it promised, and because conservatives have suddenly decided to pretend that there's something unethical about offering someone a job.

That last part is dangerous. Dangerous. Investigations should not be taken so lightly.

Let’s flash back to January 5, 1994, shall we?  Here’s the Washington Post’s editorial that day:

THE ADMINISTRATION has taken the position that there's no need to name an independent counsel in the Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan case. It argues that the investigation is safely in the hands of career Justice Department attorneys, that the president and Mrs. Clinton are cooperating fully even though not directly involved and that the attorney general has no current power to appoint a fully independent counsel anyway.

We think that's wrong -- that, murky though most aspects of this case still are, it represents precisely the kind of case in which an independent counsel ought to be appointed. We say that even though -- and this should be stressed -- there has been no credible charge in this case that either the president or Mrs. Clinton did anything wrong. Nevertheless, it is in the public interest -- and in the president's as well -- to put the inquiry in independent hands.

There had been, according to the Washington Post editorial board, “no credible charge” that either Bill or Hillary Clinton had done “anything wrong.” And yet the Post demanded an independent investigation anyway. That’s how, eventually, America got saddled with Ken Starr, and how years of investigation of an innocuous real estate deal morphed into a probe of the president’s sex life.

That’s what can happen when the media insists on an investigation not because there is evidence of real wrongdoing, but in order to prove innocence.  And that, no doubt, is exactly the kind of thing many conservatives are hoping for.

If reporters sincerely believe that the Sestak allegations suggest serious wrongdoing, fine: they should argue their case. (While they’re at it, they should demonstrate that they were saying the same thing three months ago, and three years ago, and three years before that -- or explain their sudden onset of outrage.) But if they’re just playing a little game, or -- like the Washington Post in 1994 -- asking for an investigation despite not believing there is any “credible charge” of illegality, they should think long and hard about what they’re doing.