Finding the Leak in Senate Hearings
Call me guilty. If I had been a senator or staffer during the recent Thomas hearings I, too, would have leaked the Anita Hill info to the press . . . for moral reasons.
True, I wasn’t there. But I have been. I was once a bureaucrat in Washington, also once a reporter in Washington. And I would have leaked or sought the leak because, early on, the old men of the Judiciary Committee tried to sweep Anita Hill under the rug.
But I would not--again, for moral reasons--have been a party to the official smear (Bush’s word) of Hill organized by the White House. Nor would I have participated in or permitted without public protest the successful senatorial/White House exclusion of the second woman’s (Angela Wright’s) testimony as to Thomas harassment.
Incidentally, a Washington leak is nothing to get into a voice-quivering rage about. Leaks range from frequent harmless manipulation to occasional major dirty tricks designed to injure or destroy, with White House leaks often in this last category.
DAVID ALAN MUNRO
Laguna Beach
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