The Anchoress

Seems like the investigation into leaks eminating from our IC folk is going to be an awfully big story whether the press really wants it to be or not. I’m hoping that the heroes of my childhood - the US Press - may finally redeem themselves by recognising that playing apologetics with leaks affecting national security and anti-terror strategies is going a bridge too far. I’m hoping they will pull themselves off the cliff over which so many are tumbling and actually re-build their reputations by moving beyond the usual closing of ranks to protect the shadow government and actually start reporting on things they’d preferred to leave alone.

Fer instance, when this intelligence committee memo was leaked, in which someone - presumably Sen. Rockefeller - laid out the ways and means by which a president could be politically taken out, the press ignored the story except to wonder, indignantly, who leaked the thing. It was one of those “bad” leaks, you see…not a good “whistleblowing” one, the kind meant to inform the American people and protect them from their duly elected president.

Or, you know, they could talk about the scheme to essentially eliminate the electoral college without amending the constitution! What a story that is! But you know…that’s a “bad” leak. The American people do not need to know that their electoral process is on the verge of changing without the consent of its people.

The press loves to use the word “incurious” about the president, but they reveal a staggering tendancy toward the incurious when it comes to such stories. Or John Kerry’s military records. Or what exactly WAS is Sandy Berger’s pants (har-har, that’s Sandy for you - steals top secret documents and destroys ‘em, what a card!) Or exactly what promises an intelligence officer makes as per the leaking of classified information? Is a National Intelligence Officer really just a lowly analyst? Those are interesting questions that have never piqued the curiosity of the press. They don’t even want to tell us Mary McCarthy’s politics. Seems relevent, but I could be wrong. Seems to me if the president had a D after his name, and she had an R after hers…we’d know it. Oh, yes…it would be the lede. As Rick Moran writes:

An interesting question would be did she volunteer for the assignment knowing that she would have access to a wide variety of classified information?

Several former intelligence officials said they were particularly alarmed about McCarthy’s alleged involvement in any leaks because of where she worked at the CIA. L. Britt Snyder III, who was CIA inspector general from 1997 to 2000, said if McCarthy leaked information while working in the IG office, “we would have considered that a fairly egregious sin.” The IG, he said, “gets into everything, including personal things. That makes it a little different than other places.”

Consider this: Is it coincidence or conspiracy that Mary McCarthy, partisan Democrat, was placed in exactly the right position to scan a massive amount of intelligence about a wide variety of political hot button topics that, if selectively leaked, could cause the Bush Administration enormous embarrassment and damage?

See? Those are interesting questions! Can’t the press ask them? Hmmmm…

Or maybe when five FISA judges discuss the legality of wiretapping domestic calls to or from terrorists the paper of record could record it correctly. That would be good. That would be refreshing.

Or, how about this - instead of illustrating a story about Mary McCarthy with a picture of Scooter Libby, or illustrating a story about the Mohammed Cartoon Wars with an image of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by genitalia - they actually try to tell a story in a straightforward, rather than sideways, manner.

The press is going to hate this McCarthy story, and they’re going to try to spin it away, minimize all it can and try desperately to go back to “Bush lied, people died” and, oh yeah, pay no attention to those documents which increasingly bear out the Iraq AlQ connection!

A while back, Hillary Clinton worried that blogs might have too much influence. No gatekeeping functions, you see, no guardians, no “mediating intelligence” to make sure that the information doled out to the public is the right stuff. But as Juvenal asked, who will guard the guards?

Ah, well…that’s all for today - still haven’t the energy for a good rant. The painless coup is getting painful.

Vodkapundit tells what you have to go thru when your security clearance is renewed or changed. He writes:

Now, let’s just suppose that during the last election, I had taken it upon myself to go and leak classified information about the F-22 fighter to, say, Bill Gertz at the Washington Times, in the hopes that such information would bolster the campaign of George W. Bush…Or what if I just did it to make myself look and feel cool?

It’s not my place to make that kind of decision. It wasn’t Mary McCarthy’s place, either. Neither of us were elected. Neither of us are responsible for deciding what can or should be released from the classified world. Contrary to the bleatings of McCarthy’s partisan cohorts editing the Washington Post and New York Times (who are actively soliciting classified information, even today, which I should note is itself an illegal act), neither is anybody in the press.

Vanderleun has a pithy and sad reminder of the real nature of Journalism.

Meanwhile, Michelle has all the links you want on the McCarthy story, plus more.

And remember all that money we average (but “stingy”) Americans - and the rest of the world - sent to Indonesia after the Christmas Tsunami of 2004? Predictable corruption. The connected people are doing fine, though.

Thank heaven for Mark Steyn.

Check out this WH Press Release from 1998. Hugh Hewitt also wonders if the Democrat position is really going to be that policy disagreements justify leaking classified information. Speaking of which…I forget…didn’t these renditions begin under Clinton? How come no one was “protecting the constitution” by leaking about them back then? Because it would have been WRONG to leak it, just as it was WRONG to leak it to the WaPo.

And I LOVE this incredible round up at Gateway Pundit!