This week, Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin pled guilty to charges of leaking classified defense information to a couple of D.C. lobbyists. But the feds aren't only targeting the leaker, they're also going after the leakees. National security correspondent Eli Lake has written that prosecuting non-governmental employees for leaking is unprecedented. ...

Brooke muses on the sudden release of Judith Miller from a Virginia detention center, after 85 days behind bars for refusing to testify in the long-running CIA leak investigation. Did Miller waver?

Just as Hurricane Katrina punctured the levees in New Orleans, it also created some surprising rifts in Washington. Republican loyalists are suddenly departing from the party line, and they are wading into the media to do so. Could it be that the Bush Administration P.R. machine, legendary for its message ...

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts gave what most observers agreed was an ace performance on the Hill this week. But it often seemed that his Senate interrogators were trying to steal the spotlight for themselves. In the Republic's earlier days, was the process any less theatrical? Bob discusses the history ...

It didn't take long for people trying to figure out what went wrong in New Orleans to start pointing fingers at the White House. In response, President Bush and his supporters have attempted to deflect blame back onto the blamers themselves. Bob reflects on the phrase "blame game" as the ...

This Sunday, leaders of the Christian Right will gather at a Nashville church to stage a live televised rally in support of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. The event is known as "Justice Sunday II: God Save the United States and this Honorable Court!" and features such luminaries as James ...

During a recent White House visit by Tony Blair, President Bush claimed his administration had tripled its aid to Africa in the last four years. The claim was widely reported, but was it true? Not exactly. Brooke talks to Jamison Foser of the progressive watchdog group Media Matters about why ...

The media have wasted no time in getting to work on the past record of John Roberts Jr. But with only two years' experience as a judge, the Supreme Court nominee has left relatively few clues as to his judicial philosophy. Is he a traditionalist? A strict constructionist? A judicial ...

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made his semi-annual pilgrimage to Capitol Hill last week, and it may have been his last. The mandarin of monetary policy is scheduled to retire in January. True to form, the media saw plenty of thunderous implications in the chairman's remarks. As Bob first observed ...

Even after it became clear that White House spokesman Mike McCurry had unwittingly lied about Clinton's relationship with Monica, McCurry managed to stay on the media's good side, with attempts at candor and even a little remorse. But such good rapport more often eludes presidential press secretaries. Witness, for example, ...

The Supreme Court has declined to hear the appeal of reporters Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper, the defiant duo who have resisted court orders to reveal their government sources. Miller appears headed for prison, a martyr to the end. But Cooper may still walk free. On Thursday, his bosses at ...

This week, journalism's most mysterious anonymous source, Deep Throat, revealed himself to be former G-man W. Mark Felt. Media portrayals have cast him, alternatively, as a crusader driven by affection for the Bureau or a disaffected bureaucrat with an axe to grind. Bob reflects on the media's final installment of ...

It’s a ritual of diplomacy we’ve all come to expect - foreign dignitary visits White House, and the two leaders hold a press availability. But when Afghan president Hamid Karzai dropped in this week, many White House reporters took a pass. White House staffers reportedly scrambled to fill empty seats ...

For millions of Americans, the final word on the filibuster is Frank Capra s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The 1939 film depicts 24 hours of uninterrupted oratory by a heroic junior Senator, who ultimately succeeds in defeating a corrupt political machine. But Slate senior writer Tim Noah tells Brooke ...

The rhetoric was heated this week on Capitol Hill, as the two parties neared a high-stakes showdown over the President's judicial nominees. Perhaps not as heated, though, as last Sunday, when several conservative Christian groups staged a telecast that was broadcast nationwide via a vast Christian media infrastructure that has ...

This week, the U.S. Circuit Court in Washington D.C. denied the appeals of Time Magazine's Matt Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller, both convicted of contempt last year after refusing to divulge their sources to a grand jury. Bob and Brooke reflect on the latest developments in the ...

The State Department has abruptly stopped publishing its annual report on international terrorism. The move follows news that the number of terrorist attacks in 2004 represented a 20-year high. U.S. officials say the report's methodology needs retooling. But others accuse the State Department of squelching information that contradicts the President's ...

If politicians learned anything from Watergate, it’s that the best way to manage a scandal is to be forthcoming, and that the coverup is often worse than the crime. But in today’s polarized Washington, crisis management is changing. Witness the case of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is waging ...

The notoriously drab White House press room may soon be getting a face lift. Renovation plans reportedly include a temporary relocation of facilities across the street. And that's raised the suspicions of some reporters, who see it as another attempt to reduce their already skimpy access to the President. From ...

This week, in its first hearing on FOIA compliance in 13 years, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the "Faster FOIA Act," a measure designed to reduce delays in the turnaround of public information. It's one of several new bills intended to improve the public's right to know. Could this ...