Hardball's pattern of misinformation and imbalance on CIA leak case
In recent months on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, coverage of the investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame has offered a clear pattern of misinformation by host Chris Matthews and his guests. Further, on numerous occasions, Hardball's panels of guests who discussed the issue have skewed right -- solely composed of Republicans, prominent conservatives, and journalists or political figures with no public partisan or ideological affiliation; only one arguably skewed left (the head of a nonpartisan professional organization was paired with a columnist frequently presented on PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer as the liberal of two panelists). Media Matters for America has reviewed Hardball segments devoted to the leak investigation since the July 2 revelation that Karl Rove was Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper's source in the Plame matter. Below, we have documented the show's panels that had a conservative slant, as well as the torrent of falsehoods and misinformation dished up by Matthews and his guests.
Hardball hosts and guests repeatedly offer up falsehoods and misinformation on the Plame investigation
Media Matters has documented the following false or misleading claims advanced on Hardball, from a variety of sources including Matthews himself:
Claim #1: Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV claimed Vice President Cheney sent him to Niger.
On several occasions, guests on Hardball have wrongly asserted that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV claimed that Vice President Dick Cheney sent him to Niger to investigate the veracity of reports that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium there. But as Media Matters has documented, this claim echoes a false RNC talking point that misrepresented Wilson's July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed and his August 3, 2003, interview on CNN's Late Edition. Wilson did not claim that the vice president sent him to Niger; rather, Wilson stated that the CIA sent him to Niger to answer the vice president's office's questions regarding the purported Iraq-Niger uranium deal. Claiming that Wilson stated or insinuated that Cheney's office sent him to Niger lends false justification to the argument articulated by defenders of the Bush administration that, in outing Plame, administration officials were merely setting the record straight by disclosing that Plame -- not Cheney -- had authorized the trip.
Several guests have advanced this claim, including:
- Tucker Eskew, deputy assistant to the president for communications, on the July 12 edition of Hardball.
- Ken Mehlman, Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman, on the July 13 edition of Hardball.
- Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC, on the October 13 edition of Hardball. Additionally, on the October 18 edition of Hardball, Mitchell claimed: "Joe Wilson went on television with us and in interviews and said he had been dispatched by the vice president," apparently referring to Wilson's appearance on NBC's Meet the Press on July 6, 2003, which Mitchell guest-hosted. Mitchell added: "He led people to believe, he said publicly, that he had been dispatched by the vice president. And that was clearly not the case by every bit of reporting that I have been able to do." But Media Matters could find no example of Wilson claiming that Cheney sent him to Niger. In the July 6, 2003, interview, Wilson alluded to the origins of his trip: "[T]he question [of Iraq seeking uranium from Niger] was asked of the CIA by the office of the vice president."
- Mike Allen, then a Washington Post staff writer, on the July 27 edition of Hardball.
Claim #2: Wilson was unqualified for his mission to Niger.
On the October 12 edition of Hardball, Republican attorney Victoria Toensing asserted that Wilson "doesn't have any experience in WMD, and he doesn't have any kind of senior experience in the country [Niger]" -- thereby implying that Wilson was unqualified to investigate the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal. On the October 13 edition of Hardball, National Review Washington editor Kate O'Beirne advanced a similar argument, claiming Wilson was "[n]o expert in weapons of mass destruction."
But as Media Matters noted, Wilson's qualifications for the Niger mission included diplomatic credentials (he specialized in Africa for the majority of his diplomatic career), as well as past experience investigating sales of Niger uranium in 1999. Moreover, it is unclear how, according to Toensing's and O'Beirne's criticisms, Wilson's alleged lack of experience with weapons of mass destruction would prevent him from properly investigating the sale of yellowcake uranium, which is a commodity, not a weapon, and must undergo several refining and enriching procedures before it is considered weapons-grade.
Claim #3: Wilson's wife got him the job investigating the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal.
In an attempt to undermine Wilson's credibility and to frame the leak of Plame's identity as an attempt by Bush administration officials and Robert Novak (whose July 14, 2003, column first outed Plame) at exposing nepotism, conservatives on Hardball have asserted that Plame got Wilson the job investigating the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal. During Toensing's appearance on the October 12 edition of Hardball, she stated: "If a wife gets a husband an assignment, and he doesn't have any experience in WMD, and he doesn't have any kind of senior experience in the country, Novak thought he was exposing nepotism."
O'Beirne made a similar argument during her October 13 Hardball appearance. After claiming Wilson was "[n]o expert in weapons of mass destruction," she asked, "[W]hat was he doing over there? And the innocent answer would be, his wife works at the CIA, and she recommended him."
On the October 18 edition of Hardball, Weekly Standard staff writer Stephen F. Hayes added his voice to the chorus, falsely stating that the Senate Intelligence Committee's 2004 "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq" concluded that Wilson had not been "truthful about the fact that his wife suggested him to go" -- an assertion Hayes also made in an October 24 Weekly Standard article that Media Matters debunked.
Additionally, Matthews and MSNBC correspondent David Shuster have themselves advanced the claim that Plame got Wilson the job investigating the purported uranium deal. On October 13, Matthews stated, "Of course Valerie Plame suggested her husband for the mission." He pushed this assertion again on the October 20 edition of Hardball, asking New York Daily News Washington bureau chief Thomas DeFrank, "[D]id he [Rove] leak the fact that wife of Joe Wilson sent him on the trip?" Also on the October 20 edition of Hardball, MSNBC correspondent David Shuster claimed, "His wife had recommended Wilson for the trip."
But as Media Matters noted, this assertion is disputed by CIA officials cited in The Washington Post and by unnamed intelligence officials quoted in the press. It is also unsupported by the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee report.
Claim #4: Special prosecutor Fitzgerald's investigation is limited to the Intelligence Identities Protection act, which will make it very difficult to charge anyone with a crime.
On the October 12 edition of Hardball, Toensing falsely suggested that federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the CIA leak was limited to possible violations of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), which states that revealing the identity of an undercover agent is illegal only if the leaker was aware of the agent's covert status. In response to Matthews's assertion that "this leak case ... has to do with the war and the argument for the war," Toensing stated, "It doesn't. It has to do with whether somebody violated the criminal law and gave a name of an undercover agent as defined by the law and whether that person knew that she was undercover." But as Media Matters noted, Fitzgerald was given broad authority to investigate the CIA leak, including but not restricted to possible violations of the IIPA.
On the October 13 edition of Hardball, O'Beirne downplayed the possibility that leaking Plame's identity violated the law. But as Media Matters noted, O'Beirne apparently confused the IIPA with the Espionage Act -- another statute under which Fitzgerald is reportedly considering seeking indictments. Responding to Matthews's comment that White House officials "could have still broken the law to whack" Wilson, O'Beirne said: "Yes, that underlying Espionage Act is pretty darn hard to break. They could've been unaware ... of what her status was at the CIA." The Espionage Act does not, however, specifically address the identities of covert agents, but instead deals generally with the unlawful distribution of classified information to individuals not authorized to receive it. O'Beirne's comments echo the language of the IIPA.
Claim #5: The leaks were simply part of Washington politics as usual, so no crime could have been committed.
On the October 17 edition of Hardball, former RNC chairman James S. Gilmore III baselessly suggested that the CIA leak did not involve a criminal offense: "[T]he simple fact that you say this lady works over there and that she sent her husband over to Africa -- that, in and of itself, as I think most everybody agrees, is not criminal." Matthews agreed with Gilmore's assessment, stating, "Right. But is it factual?" But as Media Matters noted, the very fact that Plame worked at the CIA was itself reportedly classified information.
MSNBC analyst and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan echoed Gilmore's baseless supposition on the October 18 edition of Hardball, stating, "Look, if Cheney said -- they said, look, his wife is an analyst over at the CIA and she's the one that's saying the CIA did this and he says look, get out the truth that we didn't do it. Those jerks at the CIA sent a Clintonite on this trip and gave him the ability to hurt the president. There's nothing wrong with that."
On the October 20 edition of Hardball, Republican strategist Ed Rollins similarly claimed, "We know for sure that a couple of very high-ranking White House guys talked to some reporters and basically tried to go out and diminish someone who was criticizing them. ... I mean, if they are going to nail them for conspiracy for sitting there and talking about it with reporters, you can nail everybody who has ever been in the White House in history." But Rollins's argument omitted reference to a key aspect of the case: the question of whether, in the process of those conversations, administration officials leaked that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA -- a potential violation of federal laws.
Claim #6: The New York Times and The Washington Post offered different accounts of the Miller-Libby conversations.
On the September 30 edition of Hardball, former Bush-Cheney campaign attorney Benjamin Ginsberg falsely claimed that September 30 articles in The Washington Post and The New York Times gave differing accounts of July 2003 conversations between Times reporter Judith Miller and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, regarding Valerie Plame's role in Wilson's trip to Niger. But as Media Matters noted, although the two articles differed slightly in structure, they agreed on the major facts of the Miller-Libby conversations -- both reporting that Libby told Miller that Plame played a role in Wilson's selection for the trip.
Hardball panels skew right
A review of Hardball programming since July 2 revealed nine separate discussions of the Plame investigation with panels solely composed of Republicans, prominent conservatives, and journalists or political figures with no public partisan or ideological affiliation. By contrast, Media Matters found only one instance of a panel that was arguably skewed left: In a July 5 discussion on whether journalists should have federal protections against revealing their sources to prosecutors, Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant was paired with Barbara Cochran, president of the nonpartisan professional organization the Radio-Television News Directors Association. (Oliphant is occasionally paired with a conservative commentator on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer -- here, for example.) The nine panels that skewed right are:
- July 15 (with NBC News chief White House correspondent David Gregory guest-hosting): Andrea Mitchell and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX);
- July 15: Washington Post correspondent Dana Milbank and National Review White House correspondent Byron York;
- July 21: Washington Post staff writer Jim VandeHei and Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley;
- July 22: Hotline editor Chuck Todd and Weekly Standard staff writer Stephen F. Hayes;
- September 30: Todd and Hayes;
- October 6: Newsweek investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff, Washington Post national political editor John Harris, and Hayes;
- October 12: Republican attorney Victoria Toensing and former Kenneth Starr deputy independent counsel Sol Wisenberg;
- October 18: MSNBC contributor and former Republican presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan and former presidential adviser David Gergen;
- October 18: Newsweek political analyst Howard Fineman and Hayes.
These specific falsehoods that consistently pop up in Hardball discussions have appeared so many times. And I have heard them for months. Matthews has shown that he is very knowledgeable. One would think that by now, Matthews would have figured out that these recurring claims are incorrect if they truly were errors. But no, whenever they are made again by another guest, Matthews continues to just let it slide, sometimes confirming them as fact. I refuse to believe that Matthews is making errors like these, and this often.
Thank you Mediamatters for continuing to expose the media when they have a right-wing bias.
Why is this so hard? Reporters' notes and testimony leave little doubt that:
1. Rove and Libby outed a CIA agent.
2. Rove and Libby disclosed classified and confidential info.
3. Not surprisingly, there are lots of laws against this kind of wrongful activity.
Instead of accountability, once again, the Republicans are going for obfuscation. This is all the more depressing because it's not even a case of bad means justifying a good end. As everyone knows, the war in Iraq is troubled, and not a good end. What we have is lying and incompetence to justify bad policy. Put mathematically, bad times bad = really bad = Bush Administration gone wild.
The solution is throw them out, conclude the investigations so we can figure out why and how we really went to war, and then think sensibly, as opposed to in cover-your-butt/denial mode, about how to responsibly make the best of this bad situation going forward.
If getting to the truth was important to Matthews, he'd invite Brock on to challenge Media Matters' documentation of his lies. He won't, however, because self-delusion is all he and the conservative movement have left.
Hello,
I've been wondering why there has been no discussion of Matthews' connections to the case when several sources published the following:
"I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was fair game." -- MSNBC host Chris Matthews, in a phone call to Ambassador Joseph Wilson after the exposure of Wilson's wife as an undercover CIA operative.
Matthews has done it again; lied and misled to provide fodder for the viewers. This continues on, because people (I for one don't) consider political shows an information source, and don't see them as the biased, rigged, skewed, whatever you want call it (except fair), that they are.
Nice work MM.
I love the part about Mitchell claiming she can't find anything "in any of the reporting I've done."
Wouldn't she need to do some work first in order to report?
Too often these journalists depend on talking points and press releases to file a story. Many can't seem to be bothered to ask questions anymore.
I've written Matthews everyweekend after he allows the lies of the right to be constantly broadcast as truth. I can only hope that everyone keeps writing. I don't know who else to write to. I hope Media Matters can do something. Maybe a full page ad in the NYT calling Matthews out for his constant support of the Rovian/GOP talking points/LIES.
In fact that would be a good idea. A full page ad calling Chris the liar he is.
I watched this past week and was just amazed at the OUTRIGHT LIES of Mitchell. I couldn't believe my ears and the only think I could think of was this:
"I wonder how much they are paying her to lie?"
As for the morons from the rightwing who keep coming over here when the lies of their beloved Fearless Leaders are exposed immediately try to wag their own dog.
WHAT BUSH AND HIS PEOPLE HAVE COMPROMISED OUR JOURNALISTS?...........QUICK......LOOK!!!! CLINTON, RATHER, GORE....NO REALLY LOOK OVER THERE!!!!
Typical rightwingers.The funny thing about the rightwing morons who come here is their claim that these are just different "opinions". Isn't that hilarious? Can't even read. THIS site is devoted to the lies and misinformation of the rightwing. You want to cry about something else...go somewhere else.
We can only hope that the full scale of media corruption is exposed, along with that of the administration. With the apparent dishonesty of Judith Miller, plus the documented cases of the administration paying columnists to support its policies, one could easily conclude that the press may be peppered with payed Bush policy advocates. If so, would this include Chris Matthews? Probably not, but his guests? We'll see.
Even if this investigation goes nowhere, it has been worth it just to watch the Republicans put their profound hypocrisy on full display. A good example is Kay Bailey Hutchison, who compared it to the Martha Stewart case, "where they couldn't find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn't a crime."
Now, if you can't see the hypocrisy of that statement, go back and read the history of the late 90s. Hint: Google "Impeachment of Bill Clinton".
"Typical rightwingers.The funny thing about the rightwing morons who come here is their claim that these are just different "opinions". Isn't that hilarious? Can't even read. THIS site is devoted to the lies and misinformation of the rightwing. You want to cry about something else...go somewhere else."
Don't we actually want right-wingers to read this site and consider that perhaps their social-fiscal conservatism is not actually being represented by those who claim to represent them, it is just being manipulated? Instead of calling them "morons" for expressing different opinions (cause you know if you ya' used pin-head, you'd be Bill O'Reilly) perhaps one might consider offering respectful disagreement, which would be a nice first step in the "right" and the "left" talking to each other, instead of about each other. At the end of the day we can call them stupid all we want, but they will just keep calling us immoral, and nothing will get done that is in anyone's interests but the politicians who benefit from our hating each other so much we won't even begin to try thinking about it from somone else's point of view.
ilean, This is the web. Most don't come to web sites to confront their beliefs or change other people's opinions. The right wingers that come here have there bombs and bombs are thrown back by the left wingers. Most of the people here, right or left, would be much more respectful if they were face to face. Anonymity gives people hubris to say what they normally wouldn't. Besides that, why do we think that political venom is new to America or politics in any place. Read some history and see how it was done in the beginning. Duels, fist fights on the floor of Congress, and Abe Lincoln portrayed as a monkey in national news papers. All is fair in love, war, and politics.
Ileangood
I suggest you reread the comment you quoted.
The author of that post objected to people coming here and attempting to distract us from new issues about the Bush cabal by raising old issues about Clinton, etc.
Those people that come here with the express purpose of trying to change the subject do not want to talk about the subject. That's why they change the subject.
Buzzramjet did not call them 'morons' because they express different opinions than what most of us here hold.
It is indisputable that many of the comments that can be found on this site are abusive towards those on the right. That is one of the reasons that Media Matters has such a stringent policy for deleting comments that violate their on-topic, non-offensive guidelines.
If you believe that someone has made a post that has too much vitriol and not enough depth of content, you should feel free to bring that post to the attention of the Media Matters moderators so they can evaluate that post for themselves, and if they find it as offensive as you apparently did, they can remove it.
In this case I believe that Buzzramjet brought up a valid point that is relevant. He sees the value in the mission of Media Matters in exposing lies and deceptions. He can tell that there is a value in making those lies well-known because the rightwingers that come here and immediately try to distract us by bringing up off-topic issues.
I gave up on Matthews when he nearly had creamed his pants on national TV when Bush landed on the aircraft carrier. He used to be good until he took the news media's post-9/11 vow of silence.
Let me echo the call for the full page ad in the WSJ, NY Times, and Washington Post pointing out Hardball's problems.
Put the little donation icon up there and I'll donate for this cause.
Cheers