Ex-friends of Hitchens told the Washington Post he could just forget about being invited to their dinner parties. The delicious irony is that Blumenthal, premier spinner of right-wing conspiracy theories, has exposed himself as part of a claustrophobic Washington elite whose connections put the Richard Mellon Scaife network to shame. Forget perjury, smear tactics, or the protection of anonymous sources. The truly worrisome issue in this story is how much of the media's business is cozily conducted over lunch, by friends, relatives and lovers, offering inside gossip and promises of secrecy.
Professional incest is a commonplace of journalism.
When I go with my wife to a party heavy with media types, she invariably gets asked whom she writes for. Look at the principals in the Blumenthal story. Hitchens, a journalist. His wife, Carol Blue, a journalist. As a citizen, though, I'm more concerned that what I learn and how I learn it gets determined over aperitifs, that our trusted informers make professional decisions based on their dinner-party seating charts.