A letter to 60 Minutes
I'm a latecomer to the controversy over the 60 Minutes story on the supposed machinations of Karl Rove to take down former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. CBS has posted the story here.
On its face, the segment is a remarkably thin piece of work from which to lob serious accusations implicating the integrity of prominent officials including Rove. Rove himself has responded to the story by asking the question that occurred to me after watching the segment: "Seeing where I was working at the time, a reasonable person could ask why I would even take an interest in that case."
The 60 Minutes story quotes two sources at length, Jill Dana Simpson and former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods. Jim Hoft has covered the issues concerning Simpson's contribution to the story here and here.
Reading about the underlying controversy, I found the name of Eddie Curran. Curran is the Mobile Press-Register reporter whose stories played a role in initiating the investigation of Siegelman. Curran is on leave from the Press-Register writing a book on Siegelman's "administration, the trial, and the aftermath, including the 60 Minutes show on Siegelman." Curran has now written a letter to 60 Minutes.
Watch or read the 60 Minutes story and then read Curran's letter in its entirety. It is of great interest. Here, for example, is Curran on Woods, the second of the 60 Minutes segment's two principal sources:
Ten years ago, on a non-investigative story about the tobacco wars, I quoted Grant Woods saying he’d spent much time working with Siegelman. Woods, like Siegelman, supported those lawsuits. At least three times as governor, Siegelman used state funds to pay for him and his wife to fly and stay at resorts for the annual conferences of the Western Attorney General Association.(Emphasis in original.) CBS has not to my knowledge responded to the questions raised about its Siegelman segment. Has 60 Minutes been duped again? As Bob Owens notes, it's hard to believe that 60 Minutes "would risk running this story without having vetted Simpson to the best of their ability." But where is the evidence that supports her tales of derring-do as Karl Rove's gumshoe?Did you ask Woods if he and Siegelman are old friends? Did you at all wonder why a former Arizona attorney general had taken such an interest in this case? Do you suppose Siegelman might have asked him to help, such as by putting together that petition signed by 52 former attorney generals? And would you suppose they are more familiar with Don Siegelman as a friend, or the facts and testimony put on at trial?
If you knew they were old friends and didn’t disclose this to viewers, why not? Were you afraid it might dilute the power of what he was saying?
Did you ask Woods specific questions about the evidence at the trial that he did not, to my knowledge, attend for one day? It is my guess that he couldn’t answer basic questions about the evidence. What you have is an old pal of the governor’s speaking in bold generalities about a case I doubt he knows much about.
Also, Woods asserts the following: “I personally believe that what happened here is that they targeted Don Siegelman because they could not beat him fair and square. This was a Republican state and he was the one Democrat they could never get rid of.”A reasonable follow-up question by Pelley might have been: But hadn’t he been defeated, “fair and square,” in the 2002 election?
In 2005, when he was indicted, Democrat Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley was all but the anointed party choice for the 2006 nomination, but you present Siegelman as if he was some vital force who Riley and the Republicans feared, and I dare you to locate a single political science professor in the state who would say as much. It’s not true, but for you, it was necessary. Without it, there would be no “motive basis” for the claim you assert with your opening sentence, which is more statement that question: “Is Don Siegelman in prison because he’s a criminal or because he belonged to the wrong political party in Alabama?”
I assert that you made up your mind as to the answer to this question even before your reporters/producers began their investigation into the Siegelman prosecution. However, I welcome your comments to the contrary.
Did 60 Minutes miss the real Rove scandal? The real scandal -- Rove's insidious power to induce prominent journalists to disgrace themselves -- may prove to be the one scandal that 60 Minutes is uniquely qualified to blow the lid off.
