Pete Williams, Tap-Dancing on Plame
Dave Sirota points to a tidbit on the Huffnigton Post, concerning the reality that Pete Williams — Dick Cheney’s former press man from his days as Secretary of Defense during Bush Sr.’s administration is covering the Libby indictment for NBC.
Ok, so it’s weird enough to see Tim Russert acting as prosecutor and witness-in-waiting in the CIA Leak case, but I think it’s time to ask former Bush 41 DOD chief press flack Pete Williams to take a bow out from actively covering the story which involves his old boss Dick Cheney and former DOD colleague Scooter Libby.
It is past absurd isn’t it — to see him grilling Patrick Fitgerald on Friday wondering how we should take the word of three reporters “versus the vice president’s chief of staff.”
Like this guy’s take on the case isn’t biased?
Ah Pete. Having this guy drop down your chimney on Fitzmas is a bit like having an old trick you’d rather forget show up at a party you’re just starting to enjoy. You manage a weak smile while muttering under your breath “Who invited him?” Of course, it no great surprise that old Pete shows up as the reporter on the case, just when the administration needs somebody to carry the water for them on this story. And nobody is more experienced than Pete at carrying water for the folks at Bush Co., without spilling a drop, and with a big smile on his face.
Of course, Pete’s been out of the news long enough for people to have almost forgotten him. So let me refresh your memory. Pete is one half of the duo that made outing famous. Michealangelo Signorile made up the other half when he outed Pete Williams as a closeted gay man (and semi-closted tap-dancer) working for one of the most conservative administrations since … well … Reagan. Why? Well, in part because big gay Pete was happily carrying water for the Bush administration at the DoD, at the same time that fellow queers were being hounded out of the military for being queer.
Back in 1991, I wrote a cover story for the Advocate about Pete Williams, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs in the Bush administration and Pentagon spokesman throughout the Gulf War. Williams was known to be gay by higher-ups in the Pentagon, including then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and, it appeared, President Bush. Meanwhile the Pentagon was booting gays and lesbians out of the military, claiming they were a security risk because they might have access to classified information and could be blackmailed, while the average cook, private or porter had no access to state secrets. But the truth is, Pete Williams certainly did.
So, if he biased? As far as I’m concerned, yup. I’m sorry, but when you’re willing and happy to work for someone who’s supervising the persecution of people just like you, it’s clear where your loyalty lies; with the powers that be, even if the “be” against people just like you. If I were going to be even more catty, I’d refer to is as “house negro syndrome,” which is something that befell many black slaves who worked in the big houses in such close proximity to their masters — who’s favor also protected them from some of brutality suffered by slaves in the fields — that they began to identify with their masters instead of their fellow black slaves. But since I’m not being catty, I’ll just refer to it as a variation on Stockholm Syndrome.
That kind of loyalty dies hard, if it dies at all. And now that his old boss is in the eye of a storm that could overwhelm him and the Bush administration, it wouldn’t surprise me if old Pete still had a soft spot for Cheney, and couldn’t help but use his position in the media to help his old boss and the administration. It’d be just like old times, in fact.
If nothing else, this ought to put to bed any further conservative claims about the “liberal media.” When Ann Coulter said “we have the media now,” she wasn’t just whistling Dixie.
Technorati Tags: bush, current events, karl rove, media, politics