Piercing the veil

Do pundits know more about the goings-on amongst top political figures than they tell us? Of course. Most discussions of this issue tend to revolve around Journalism 101 debates about whether to put the private lives of politicians into circulation, and in that regard most of the hacks seem to have settled on the pleasing formulation (as the Daily Howler would say) that such stuff is strictly private unless there is some point of public policy relevance; now this exception, which was presumably intended to be a small loophole, instead became a means of political attack by using the legal system to put private lives in the public arena; witness the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The bastard child of this culture is the Heathers-style sneering trash peddled by the crypto-neocon Wonkette.

But that's another story. What about the true opinions or feelings of politicians on policy issues, which pundits may know about because of their access to them, but don't tell us? Again, the incomparable Daily Howler has les mots justes: Millionaire Pundit Values. These people know all kinds of relevant stuff but pull their punches for the columns and interviews. But maybe the veil between what they know and what they are willing to tell us is cracking a bit. Example: the dinner/cocktail party at some bigwig's house, to which some scribes are invited with everything off-the-record.

Strangely enough, one of the few pundits willing to stretch the rules of these events was Lady Black, the now ex-columnist for the Daily Telegraph. We can think of two instances where Barbara Amiel spilled the beans about what was really said -- once catching the then French Ambassador to the UK (since deceased) refer to Israel as "that shi**y little country," and later finding Roger Ailes (not the blogger) blithely crossing the line between his private (Fox News) and quasi-public (White House propagandist) roles.

Add the Wall Street Journal's Al Hunt to the list of fearless pundits who might have sacrificed an invitation or two. Because in his Thursday column (subs. req'd), he reports on a Washington dinner he seems to have attended a few weeks ago. As far as we can tell, this is the same dinner that prompted rumours that Colin Powell was quitting as Secretary of State to become President of the World Bank. But anyway, here's what Al either saw or was told by another indiscrete hack:

A while ago [Rumsfeld] was a guest at a small Washington dinner party thrown by World Bank President James Wolfensohn. Other guests included United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Senators Ted Kennedy and Chuck Hagel and a few prominent journalists.

The topic turned to the detainees at Guantanamo and Secretary Rumsfeld was asked why not treat all prisoners under Geneva Convention rules. He grew increasingly agitated and finally, turning to his wife, declared, "Joyce, we're leaving." He subsequently walked out.

At the very least we learn that Rummy is a bit more flustered in reality about the military detention controversies than the usual profiles would have us believe. Note also that the timeline for this dinner is prior to the Baghdad prison scandal, which leads us to believe that there have been long-standing tensions behind the scenes about this issue from which our betters in the press corps have chosen to protect us. As Howler says, Millionaire Pundit Values.