The Grey Lady that did not bark in the night

Curiously, America's Greatest Newspaper (not!) has never mentioned the White House Iraq Group. Not once.

Why is this curious? Because to make the case for Bush's war of choice in Iraq, the W.H.I.G. was tasked with fixing the facts and the intelligence around the policy through a disinformation campaign that involved more than 50 planted stories in the press. The W.H.I.G. membership? Karen Hughes, Andrew Card, Mary Matalin, James Wilkinson, Karl Rove—and “Scooter” Libby, the source Judy "Kneepads" Miller was, erm, "protecting."

Why would the Times not cover this story? Why wouldn't anyone else? Here are some theories, in increasing order of institutional corruption.

Timesman Paul Krugman, curiously, circles round the problem, characterizing the behavior of the press under the Bush regime not as an institutional collapse, but as the result of personal ethical failures:

Let's be frank: the Bush administration has made brilliant use of journalistic careerism. Those who wrote puff pieces about Mr. Bush and those around him have been rewarded with career-boosting access.
(via the Times print edition and here)

However, Krugman has focussed—was allowed to focus?—only on the side issue of Bush hagiography, rather than on the central issue of how the press covered the runup to the Iraq War. (No talk of 50 planted stories here!)

Sid Blumenthal at least characterizes the behavior of the press as an institutional breakdown:

Unlike in Watergate, which was largely advanced by the press, [TraitorGate] has unfolded despite much of the press corps' efforts to avoid, demean or restrain the story until very recently. Also unlike in Watergate, major influences in the press have aligned with their sources in the administration, not with the professionals in the government acting as whistle-blowers.
(via Salon)

However, Blumenthal is curiously imprecise about the way in which the press has "aligned" itself with the administration. (No talk of planted stories here!)

Michael Getler, WaPo's departing ombudsman, blames the institutional breakdown on the editors:

[T]he period before the Iraq war is so important because it was one of those historic, chips-are-down moments when a newspaper, especially one as important as The Post, must commit to using its resources and exercising its responsibilities to probe fully what the government is saying and doing.

[S]tories that challenged the official wisdom and unfolded in public were either missed or played down. I have attributed this mostly to what seemed to me to be a lack of alertness on the part of editors who at the time were also undoubtedly focused on preparing for the coming war.

Editors up and down the line are the key to this...
(via WaPo)

However, Getler, curiously, seems unwilling to examine the cause of this "lack of alertness"; could it be, as Krugman says, simple careerism? Mencken did say: "Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced"--or whose kids are in private schools. (Again, no mention of planted stories here. And when you think about it, editors would be very useful gatekeepers to get the planted stories in, and keep the real story out.)

But we've said what the problem is, at the Times and in the press as a whole, quite directly in plain language:

7. I suggest that Times management—Keller, Sulzberger—was embedded in the disinformation campaign run by the White House Iraq Group, that Miller was their operative, and Libby was their handler. Of course, their White House handler wouldn’t have been crass enough to offer them money; the access to power, and the promise of scoops, would have been enough. The scoops were to come from Chalabi. (It doesn’t matter whether the White House still had faith in Chalabi; what matters is that the Times did).
(back)

Long story short:

The Times hasn't mentioned the W.H.I.G. because they were part of the W.H.I.G. disinformation campaign. In Traitorgate, Valerie Plame was outed to protect that operation, because the Niger uranium story was one of the stories that W.H.I.G. planted. (Remember the crude forgery of mysterious provenance that the yellowcake story was based on?)

And the reason it seems like they were all in on it, is that they were all in on it. All the Kewl Kidz, and all the media whores. The Beltway 500 crowd is dirty--Not all of them, but a percentage at the top of the dominance heirarchy (Not you, Dan Froomkin, and not you, Walter Pincus.)

So, it will be interesting to see if the Times can—snigger—cover itself in its still forthcoming story on Miller, or whether they'll go into modified limited hangout mode to protect Keller and Sulzberger—and, incidentally, not blow the cover of the W.H.I.G. disinformation campaign. Maybe this post can be your magic decoder ring to help you read between the lines of what they are allowed to write.

NOTE Please refer all comments containing the words "tinfoil hat" to the Department of No! They Would Never Do That!

UPDATE From comments at Kos, SourceWatch on WHIG. Also, firedoglake has an excellent summary of the record.

UPDATE Frank Rich does a modified limited hangout on WHIG in Sunday's Times.

UPDATE Treasongate: The Crime, The Means, The Opportunity, and Now The Motive (Hint: It comes from the PNAC).

UPDATE I've organized this series of posts into a book. Click on the "Previous" and "Next" buttons to follow the story as it unfolds for us.