Less than 36 hours after the indictments of I. Lewis Libby were announced, America’s first poll results concerning the matter were released just in time for them to be part of all the Sunday political talk shows tomorrow morning.

As reported by the Washington Post, the results of a new Washington Post/ABC News survey suggest that:

“55 percent of the public believes the Libby case indicates wider problems "with ethical wrongdoing" in the White House, while 41 percent believes it was an ‘isolated incident.’ And by a 3 to 1 ratio, 46 percent to 15 percent, Americans say the level of honesty and ethics in the government has declined rather than risen under Bush.”

The poll also puts Bush’s job approval at 39 percent. Yet, one has to wonder about its methodology. As the article indicated, “The survey of 600 randomly selected Americans represents a snapshot of initial reactions to the Libby indictment.” To be sure, 600 is an extremely small sample. Moreover, there is no indication of what the breakdown was of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents surveyed, which is particularly important given the belief by most pollsters that weekend surveys normally produce a greater percentage of Democratic respondents than is representative of the population. Regardless, the article by Post journalists Richard Morin and Claudia Deane made some pretty grave conclusions from this data:

At “The Huffington Post’s” blog, Al Franken’s most recent post is called, “Happy Fitznukkah, Everybody!” In it, Franken expressed hope that yesterday’s indictments of I. Lewis Libby weren't a “one-day holiday like Fitzmas” - a not-so comical conglomeration of the words Fitzgerald and Christmas - and waxed elatedly about the possibility of other presents to come such as indictments to Ari Fleischer and Karl Rove:

“The only disappointment was the lack of a ‘treason’ indictment. Looks like thirty years is the most Scooter will get. But who knows? He might get squeezed and end up ratting out the other guys, and get only eight to twelve.”

Yet, maybe the most enlightened opinion - and certainly the most comical - at this thread was posted in the comments section:

AP and others still refer to indictment of Libby as CIA 'Leak' Case. The only problem is that Fitzgerald found no evidence of the law governing covert agents being broken.

The media's treatment of this case as though it is still about leaking a covert CIA agent's name is a perfect example of the lazy, agenda-driven journalism that tries to pass as serious reporting. With over 24 hours now since Libby's indictment, and an explanation that it isn't about the leak, the media writes its headlines as though MoveOn.Org is exercising editorial control.

Here is just one example:

Libby Lawyer Outlines Defense in Leak Case

By PETE YOST, Associated Press WriterSat Oct 29,11:44 AM ET

Saturday October 29 2005

Prosecutor, White House at Odds Over Libby By LARRY MARGASAK and PETE YOST, Associated Press Writers
22 minutes ago @ http://news.yahoo.com/fc/us/bush_administration
 

WASHINGTON - The prosecution's conclusion: Vice President     Dick Cheney's chief of staff zealously pursued information about a critic who said the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to make the case for war.

The view of the president and vice president: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is a dedicated public servant who has worked tirelessly on behalf of his country.

I'm going out on a limb here, but here goes anyway. The above 2 conclusions are actually in the same paragraph, I seperated them on purpose for impact. Here's my problem with the paragraph... I read the indictments 3 times now, and have yet to find where it states what Larry and Pete write in the very first sentence. The second sentence is an accurate statement being repeated by Bush and Cheney.

One angle the major media hasn't underlined in the current explosion of Plamegate coverage is the legislative origins of the scandal in the passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. As much as liberals like Al Franken love to say they oppose treason, the bill was opposed by a handful of liberals and Democrats. Some nuggets from the Washington Post coverage follow.

President Reagan signed it, and some left-wingers protested from June 24, 1982:

The American Civil Liberties Union has criticized the law as a "clearly unconstitutional infringement on the right of free speech." Morton H. Halperin, director of ACLU's Center for National Security Studies, said the organization would provide legal assistance to "those whose ability to speak or write is threatened by this legislation or effort to enforce it by the Justice Department."

    When it was revealed that conservative columnist Armstrong Williams had received payments for advocating certain positions of the Bush administration, the MSM and the left had a field day. Williams was forced to defend himself on the morning talk shows and was parodied by syndicated cartoons. Most conservatives also rightly criticized Williams.

    But now the Newark city council has awarded a $100,000 no-bid contract for the Newark Weekly News to publish only the good news about Newark and the city government. James Taranto has provided mild criticim, based mostly on the newspaper's amateurish content. Enlighten-New Jersey provides broader context:

Copied from the radio industry website AllAccess.com and their Net News section (registration required):

"After the dispute that saw JONES/P1's ED SCHULTZ added, then dropped from AMERICAN FORCES RADIO, Sen, TOM HARKIN (D-IA) has introduced a bill to appoint an ombudsman to monitor political balance at the AMERICAN FORCES RADIO AND TV NETWORK. The bill is aimed at AFRTS' carriage of conservative RUSH LIMBAUGH but no commercial liberal talk shows (the network does carry NPR talk programming, which conservative critics would characterize as liberal-leaning and liberal critics would not). 

"SCHULTZ recently charged that AFRTS had agreed to add his show but reneged after he went on the air and criticized Deputy Ass't. Sec'y. of Defense ALLISON BAR

As it so often does, the Associated Press likes to play word games, especially when it comes to stories on Republicans.

On Wednesday, Larry Margasak wrote a piece called, “DeLay Acknowledges Failure to Report Money.” In it, Margasak seemed to imply that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was somehow guilty of intentionally trying to hide donations to the Delay Legal Expense Trust; money raised to battle the charges brought against him by Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle.

Here's another nugget of recent media history on indictment coverage of Democrats. While the networks have found a grave problem in Vice President Cheney's office in Scooter Libby, the same networks weren't hot to report the indictment of Maria Hsia, who helped arrange Al Gore's infamous Buddhist Temple fundraiser. On July 8, 1998, in the middle of Monicagate, Brent Baker reported in the CyberAlert that Hsia was indicted:

A 13-second item on CBS is all the coverage devoted Tuesday night to the indictment of Maria Hsia of temple fundraiser fame. Some notes on Tuesday night, July 7 coverage: