Let us dispense once and for all with the notion that Mary McCarthy was some kind of non-partisan “whistleblower” whose conscience was so troubled by the Bush Administration’s rendition of terrorist thugs to prisons in Europe that she felt there was no other recourse than to blab the story to Dana Priest of the Washington Post.
Only dogs, little children, and liberal Democrats could possibly believe that bedtime story.
The tip-off here is Mrs. McCarthy’s $5,000 contribution to the Ohio State Democratic party just weeks before the 2004 election. Why is this proof positive of her rabid partisanship?
First of all, the amount is the maximum allowed to a state party under the law. Secondly, the idea for making this donation did not just occur to Mrs. McCarthy out of the clear blue sky; McCarthy could very well have been solicited by virtue of her being on an exclusive big donor’s list.
It’s possible but not likely that McCarthy’s $5,000 donation was in response to a mass appeal made by the Democratic party where they mail out tens of thousands of fundraising letters headed “Dear Democrat” or “Dear Friend.” Rather, it is much more likely that she is on a “Fat Cat” donor list that would be limited to a couple of thousand extremely loyal partisans that the party can count on in a financial crunch. This kind of network would be personally solicited with a letter and perhaps even a follow up telephone call. Since the date of her donation is registered with the FEC as October 5, 2005, the probability is that she gave that money sometime in September. Given the vagaries of 3rd class mail (which can sometimes take up to 2 weeks to be delivered), it would again be unlikely that McCarthy was responding to some kind of generic appeal for money.
It is significant that the donation went to Ohio. Everyone knew Ohio would be extremely close. But for the Kerry campaign to make a specific appeal to bolster the state party in their get out the vote activities, it’s clear that the campaign saw Ohio as the ballgame – winner take all – and a perfect spot to beg the Fat Cats to step up and give.
My understanding is that 138 donors gave the max to the the Ohio state Democratic party at approximately the same time as McCarthy. If true, then Mrs. McCarthy would have been on quite the exclusive donor list indeed.
Does this preclude her “my conscience bothered me” defense? No, but even the most rabid loony lefty would have to admit it makes that explanation much more problematic. At the very least, we are left with a reporter who knew McCarthy had a political ax to grind which means Ms. Priest either didn’t care or chose not to inform the reader and lessen the negative impact of the story.
And she won a Pulitzer for this?
I realize anonymous sources are the lifeblood of national security reporters like Priest. But to not disclose the clearly partisan leanings of a source does a huge disservice to her readers. An honest approach would have included something like this:
“A source in the intelligence community with ties to the Democratic party confirmed that the secret prisons...”
To believe that the political affiliation of a source has no bearing on how that source is viewed by readers is willful blindness. Or a demonstration of partisanship on the part of the reporter. I have found Priest’s articles to be generally well researched and incisively written. She is certainly one of the top national security reporters in the country.
My respect for her has gone down considerably in the lst 48 hours.
8:06 am
Rick- one more thing I would like to know about McCarthy- she and her husband gave substantial donations during the 2004 election cycle. As you pointed out, that Ohio donation is puzzling. Do we know if she got her job at the IG office AFTER the election didn’t pan out for Kerry?
I’m troubled by the idea that a partisan looked for a job that gets all the CIA dirt (the IG office) with the specific goal of leaking.
I don’t know, maybe too far out on a limb.
8:23 am
The real question here is “does McCarthy have any personal connection to the State of Ohio, or was this the best way to ‘back her horse (Kerry)’ in a tight election?” If she has no connection, then the partisanship is so sickenly obvious, maybe the NYT and CNN will even notice.
8:30 am
Don’t know where she grew up but she went to Michigan State undergrad and U of Minnesota post grad.
Also taught at Yale.
8:46 am
If she has no connection, then the partisanship is so sickenly obvious, maybe the NYT and CNN will even notice.
I wish I had your optimism on this one. I checked CNN.com and NYTimes.com – both news outlets have this story ‘below the fold,’ so to speak. At least on my laptop’s screen.
I know we conservatives play the ‘what if it were a Republican’ game too often at times, but in this case it’s a question worth asking.
11:54 am
At the very least, we are left with a reporter who knew McCarthy had a political ax to grind which means Ms. Priest either didn’t care or chose not to inform the reader and lessen the negative impact of the story.
With apologies for tooting my own horn, I’ve cross-posted a recap at my own blog & Newsbusters of Dana Priest’s position on the motives of anonymous sources at the CIA. In a live chat Nov. 3, the day after her secret prisons story, we have the following exchange:
Washington, D.C.: Cliff Kincaid writing in “Accuracy in Media” says that your story on secret prisons yesterday “reflects the view of a faction in the agency (CIA) that opposes this policy and wants to use The Post to convey its view publicly. Once again, the secret war against the Bush administration is on display for all to see.”
While I don’t expect you to reveal your sources to us—although go ahead if you want to do so—you should at least be able to tell us if there is any truth to the notion that currently serving CIA officers are trying to undermine the Bushies. Are they?
Dana Priest: I’ve always found this view amusing, and rather convenient for the White House, which likes to point to someone else when it’s own policy decisions don’t work out right or fail to achieve the stated goals (like other administrations, I would add) Most CIA people I’ve met probably voted for George Bush. And the CIA is responsible for executing the war on terror and capturing the vast majority of the terrorist suspects around the world. No one from the CIA and no one who used to be in the CIA proposed that I write the article I did. On the contrary.
I’ll add here that we cannot yet know whether Priest was aware of McCarthy’s political contributions. One would think Priest would at least be informed about a top source’s political leanings—or be almost recklessly uncurious about them.
11:59 am
There is almost no way that Priest could NOT have known that her source was a major Democratic Party fundraiser.
This inconvenient fact was PURPOSELY left out of her story. Why? Because it allows the reader to draw an inference regarding the TRUTH of the story. This is a frequent tactic of Post and NY Times reporters.
They love anonymouse sources because it allows them to hide their own partisanship behind a veil of secrecy. The outing of Mary McCarthy is bad news not JUST for McCarthy, but for the press, because it once again proves that they frequently hide the partisan political affiliations of their sources under the cloak of anonimity.
12:31 pm
I love my left-wing friends and neighbors (living in a big university town, I have plenty of them) and I wish them all the best—except political power. What annoys us middle of the roaders (and right of the roaders) is, I think, the feeling that they and their policies would endanger our lives. But what the hell, they aren’t in power and so can do no harm. Mary McCarthy, however, does not qualify for this neighborly love if, for personal and partisan advantage, she has compromised our elected government’s efforts to protect all of our lives from those who would kill us and, in fact, have killed about 3,000 of us. Unless she is granted immunity for grand jury testimony, my guess is that she’s in a heep of trouble.
3:25 pm
Rick: I just posted that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions regarding Mary the Traitor’s contributions to Kerry and the Democrats, as, for all we know, the contributions might have been from her husband/at her husband’s bequest, they might not have been that much money (on a relative scale) depending on how much money her husband pulls in and that she may have been pressured while at the liberal-leaning CSIS to make contributions to ‘like-minded” candidates.
3:26 pm
The politics of the CIA leak cases
My job has been so crazy lately that I’ve barely been able to keep half-an-eye on the first firing as a result of a leak from the CIA: that of Mary McCarthy, fired for allegedly leaking the existence of a CIA operation where suspected terrorists were i…
3:28 pm
[...] What’s missing from the L.A. Times story? Basically, all of the above. There is no mention of McCarthy’s connection to the Democratic Party — a connection that, Rick Moran ably argues, shows her to be far, far more than a standard contributor. There is no mention of Dana Priest’s connection to leftist causes through her husband. And there is no mention of the fact that the leaked information about “secret prisons” has not been substantiated, at all. Nobody has found them. [...]
5:05 pm
I saw her interview on CSPAN about her book about the bosnian “occupation” and I realized she was a selfrighteous idiot outsider making judgements about HUGE organizations, based on small experience.
She’s a reporter, which makes her, by definition “ignorant” because her only job is “asking questions” and the answers she fabricates are either the words of others, like the treasonous mary, or arrogant assumptions about situations based on what she has learned second hand from treasonals people like mary.
All “intel” reporters are stupid.
9:14 am
[...] This is outrageous. The L.A. Times continues to hide from its readers what media critic Howard Kurtz has called “absolutely relevant information” about Mary McCarthy: her web of connections to prominent Democrats, including sizeable monetary contributions. This, despite the fact that the paper considered analogous information, regarding prominent Swift Vet John O’Neill’s contributions to Republicans, to be worth its own story. What’s worse, today’s story positively seeks to portray her as a pure creature of conscience (my emphasis): Former colleagues described her as cautious and respected. “I thought she was a competent, quiet, good intelligence officer,” said Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy CIA director who worked with McCarthy. “She was certainly someone you had respect for and saw not as an ideologue or someone who would end up putting herself in this position.” [...]
11:05 pm
[...] P.S. The L.A. Times still isn’t reporting anything of the partisan ties of either woman. There are no new stories about Mary McCarthy since their last deceptive bilge, which implied that she is nonpartisan (by repeating quotes asserting that she is not an “ideologue”), while failing to report the evidence that she is indeed very much a Democrat partisan. You still pretty much have to be in tune with the blogosphere to know about McCarthy’s extensive Democrat partisan ties. [...]
1:55 pm
[...] Remember Mary McCarthy? She blabbed to the Washington Post’s Dana Priest about alleged secret prisons abroad (never found). She turned out to be a major Democrat partisan and financial contributor, but the L.A. Times didn’t ever tell us about that. Instead, the paper told us that she is not an ideologue. [...]