The Semiotics Of Scandal

If the Wilson/Plame affair ends up having a longer, and ultimately more damaging, half-life than any of the other Bush administration mini-scandals (Enron, Halliburton, the Cheney Energy advisors, the original uranium flap), I suspect one key reason might lie not in the content of the scandal, but rather the form. Unlike those other controversies, Wilson/Plame has one key ingredient to its story: a Deep Throat.

There is irresistible, itch-you-can't-stop-scratching quality to a Deep Throat narrative. Whenever someone comes up with a new speculation about the original one, it generates a week's worth of coverage -- and that story is thirty years old! The press will keep clawing away at this new version, until the leaker is revealed (it helps that the leak itself was a criminal act, of course.) It gives the whole story a far more coherent arc -- it makes it a literal whodunit, as a opposed to a "did the White House know that there was some suspect intelligence information in the State of the Union?"

So if there are any structuralist literary critics on the White House payroll, I'd imagine they're advising the President to get out in front of this one: if they know the leaker's identity, they should hand him/her over to Justice immediately. Otherwise it's just going to fester, and maybe explode.

Comments

[Alexandre Werneck]

Dear Mr. Johnson.

I'm very sorry for contacting you by your blog, but i sent you a message (at stevenj@feedmag.com) and I had no success in reach you.

My name is Alexandre Werneck. I'm a Brazilian journalist. I work for Portal Literal (a web magazine on literature and thinking, on www.literal.com.br) and we would be glad if we could set an interview on your book Emergence. As you know the book is beeing released here. After Portal Literal, the interview will probably goes to Jornal do Brasil (one of the biggest Brazilian newspapers. It's on internet, at: www.jb.com.br).

Please, let me know the best way to do it. I prefer we talk by phone, but if you prefer, I can send you the questions by e-mail.

I thank you.

Best regards.

Alexandre Werneck
avwerneck@globo.com
55-21-2285-2962
55-21-9857-8910 (cel phone)

[Book Review]

I thought the journalist in question (Novak) has declared that his source didn't call him (he was interviewing him when it came up) and that he checked with the CIA and they told him that she worked for them, but that she wasn't and agent or undercover in any way.

Or was this entry before you heard that news?

(From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21300-2003Sep30.html)

[Dr. R. Shannon Duval]

I'm also sorry for using this forum to contact you if inappropriate. Embarassingly, I cannot figure out from this website how to email you.

I'm a philosophy professor seeking permission to use an article published in Feedmag in one of my course readers. If you would be able/willing to give me some direction as to how to obtain permission to use the Kay/Kramer interview I would be most greatful.

Apologies again for posting here.

Dr. R. Shannon Duval
duvals@mtmary.edu

[Sheryl]

Steven, that's a good point that no one else seems to have considered much.

In response to Book Review's comment, there seems to be some confusion over how Novak got his information. Josh Marshall documents the inconsistency here and is an excellent source for all things political.

[jay]

Wow, it really hit me... there is probably nobody in the Bush White House who even knows what post-structuralism is, other than at that level of vague loathing of anything post-.