Media Takes: A Dogged Blogger at the Libby Trial
In her former life, Jane Hamsher produced Hollywood movies–most notably Quentin Tarantino's 1994 Natural Born Killers, in which she made a cameo appearance as a female demon. She later wrote the bestselling tell-all Killer Instinct about her experience making that flick.
This week, however, Hamsher, 47, can be found in the credentialed press rows of Judge Reggie Walton's federal courtroom in Washington, pursuing her latest passion as the liberal www.firedoglake.com blogger covering the Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury and obstruction-of-justice trial.
She is among a handful of bloggers who finally won the right to cover a federal trial as part of the horde of credentialed media. And Hamsher has drawn the most attention, in part for her association with Arianna Huffington–Hamsher writes for her friend's popular blog www.huffingtonpost.com–but also for firedoglake's dogged coverage of the case, its pointed media criticism, and its live blogging of the trial.
Visitors to the site can in close to real time follow witnesses, testimony, legal maneuverings, and, occasionally, the sartorial choices of those on the stand. During the trial, weekday visits to the site have more than doubled to nearly 200,000, Hamsher said.
At firedoglake.com, which she started in 2004, Hamsher has assembled a paid group of bloggers that includes a former prosecutor, a public-radio announcer, an activist in the progressive movement, and a stable of other guest bloggers.
Hamsher achieved online notoriety last year when she posted on her site a doctored photo depicting Sen. Joseph Lieberman in blackface. Hamsher, who supported Lieberman's antiwar rival Ned Lamont in the race for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, eventually took the photo down and posted an apology.
Her very presence at the trial is a testament to her commitment to the story: Hamsher had major surgery last month for breast cancer, her third episode with the disease. But there was no way, she said, she was going to miss the opportunity of potentially seeing Vice President Dick Cheney on the stand. (As the trial winds down, Cheney has not been called as a witness, though his appearance has not been ruled out.)
"This was a hobby that became all consuming," says Hamsher. "When I heard about blogging, I was immediately fascinated." It seemed a fine fit, she said, because she could be political, sassy, and snarky–a style that she found came naturally to her when she wrote her book.
During a lunch break at court Monday, Hamsher sat down for a discussion with U.S. News about her passion for blogging, the Libby trial, and the ongoing debate over whether the administration set out to undermine war critic Joseph Wilson and out his CIA wife, Valerie Plame.
On her fascination with the Libby trial and the investigation that led to the charges.
The Hollywood gene kicked in. It's very Shakespearean. There's Dick Cheney, the oily villain sitting there with a sneer on his face. There's Scooter Libby, the loyal soldier. There's the beautiful spy, her dashing ambassador husband, the journalists. It was such a good story. It did become, for a variety of reasons, the signature story of the blogosphere.
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