Beat All the Press

The press saw the same thing we saw yesterday, that Cathie Martin revealed the dark underbelly of WH press strategy.

Memo to Tim Russert: Dick Cheney thinks he controls you.

But it was more than her testimony that revealed the underbelly. First, here’s how I described her testimony of the notes she took from which the Russert news came.

[Martin describing the note] At top of backside her notes. Black is what the press strategy options were. Describing it:

  • MTP (putting VP on MTP), plus a pro and con ofputting VP on MTP Pros: best format, we control the message, Cons: tooweedy [Hey Jane!! I’m not the only one!] Too defensive, Raises the bar,meant I thought it raises the bar on the story.
  • Leak to Sanger/Pincus/Newsmag: Sanger was workingon what he thought was a definitive piece, we could go to Sanger andtell him our version of this. Reporter with NYT. Pincus, WaPo, musthave been writing story about his particular story. Newsmags, bc it wasthe end of the week, Time, Newsweek, deadlines are on Saturday.
  • Press conference with Condi or Rummy.
  • Op-ed. In my vernacular, it also can mean having a third party write one [you want to name those third parties, Cathie?]

M[artin] I [believe] Jennie Mayfield asked for a copy, and I made a copy. I’m pretty sure I gave her the original.

The piece of testimony refers to the second page of this document. The first page is the OVP draft of Tenet’s statement, which I hope to get to today or tomorrow. The second page shows the notes Martin wrote when–after Libby asked her to leave his office so he could take a call from Hadley and pretend he hadn’t asked Martin for advice–she jotted down as possible responses to Joe Wilson.

The document reads:

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