One can usually expect the Washington Post to reflect a liberal point of view in their editorials. After all, Washington, D.C. is the most liberal city in the United States. There are so many moonbats flitting around the halls of Congress and the agencies that you can’t put out a cigarette without burning a hole in someone’s tin foil hat.

That said, there really is no excuse for this:

IF CIA OFFICIALS leaked information about the agency’s secret prisons to The Post’s Dana Priest, then the American public owes them a debt of gratitude. We don’t know who the sources were for Ms. Priest’s Pulitzer Prize-winning work, though we assume there were many. (The news and editorial departments here operate separately, and they don’t share such information.) Last week a CIA officer on the verge of retirement, Mary O. McCarthy, was fired for speaking to Ms. Priest and other journalists, though she says she did not provide classified information about the secret prisons. Anyone who talked from inside the CIA violated the agency’s rules, if not the law. But they also upheld the public interest.

The “secret prisons are bad” theme has taken hold and there’s not much one can do at this point to debunk it. The fact is, two separate Commissions of the European Union have been unable to find any human rights violations as a result of the program which means that the only “evidence” we have at this point that the secret prisons carried out violations of human rights and torture is an anonymously sourced article by Dana Priest which was partly based on stories overseas from even more questionable sources (left wing journalist Stephen Grey did much of the original work on the flights of prisoners) but which never offer a shred of proof that any torture took place. (Priest mentions the death of one prisoner of exposure due to his being forced to lie on a cold, prison floor).

I am personally convinced that the prisons, in fact, existed. But as far as what went on there, no one has been able to prove a damn thing.

Are secret prisons in and of themselves, illegal? Well, if you believe captured terrorists have the same constitutional rights as you or I then yes indeed they are. If, however, you believe that we’re at war and that the idea of foreign terrorists being able to game a system they are trying to destroy is utter nonsense then they are not illegal and probably even a good idea.

But for Mary McCarthy (who according to her lawyer did not have access to information about the prisons) and others who had unauthorized contacts with the press on this story, they took it upon themselves to make a moral judgement on a program that foreign governments were desperate to keep secret – and for obvious reasons. If it got out that al Qaeda prisoners were being held in their country, they would present themselves as a terrorist target. But to McCarthy, the Washington Post, and those that agree with them, this vital foreign policy goal should take a back seat to their narrow concept of what is or is not moral.

A close call perhaps? But that’s why we elect Presidents. They are the ones authorized to make the close calls during wartime, not the Mary McCarthys of the world. I can understand if massive violations of human rights were occurring at those prisons then a troubled conscience could be used as a defense for leaking. But since no evidence exists that such horrific practices took place, what possible motivation could there be to make the prison story public?

If you guessed pure partisanship, you win a cookie:

We don’t question the need for intelligence agencies to gather or keep secrets, or to penalize employees who fail to do so. Leaks that compromise national security, such as the deliberate delivery of information to foreign governments, must be aggressively prosecuted. But the history of the past several decades shows that leaks of classified information to the U.S. media have generally benefited the country—whether it was the disclosure of the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam era or the more recent revelations of secret prisons and domestic spying during the war on terrorism. Those who leak to the press often do so for patriotic reasons, not because they wish to damage national security.

How “patriotic” was it to leak a classified analysis (one of dozens of similar analysis about an insurgency most of which contradicted the leak) about post war Iraq three days before the first Presidential debate in 2004?

If this be patriotism, I’d hate to see the Post’s definition of treason.

That’s only one example, of course. But what the hell is the difference between leaking classified information to a newspaper and handing the same information to a foreign government? Either way, our enemies see it. Such parsing is complete nonsense. To try and draw that distinction is idiotic, something the Post has gone overboard to prove themselves to be in this editorial. Anyone who thinks that revealing the existence of the NSA intercept program (erroneously referred to above as “domestic spying) didn’t do damage to our ability to track al Qaeda suspects both overseas and in this country is deluded.

I tried to draw a distinction between “good leaks” and “bad leaks” earlier and I’m afraid I didn’t do the subject justice. I agree that leaking the Pentagon Papers was probably a good thing. But I disagree that most leaks are done by patriots or that there exists some moral justification for leaking out of spite or partisanship as is clearly the case with what the CIA has been doing these last 3 or more years with regards to the Bush Administration’s War on Terror. And if Porter Goss has made getting the leakers a high priority it is only because of the enormous damage they are doing to the effort to defeat the fanatics who, if they get their way, will kill us all.

UPDATE

Jonah Goldberg on the WaPo editorial:

I think the Washington Post’s editorials are miles ahead of the Times’ in quality and seriousness—usually. But this self-justifying gas mass of an editorial is just ridiculous. It boils down to: Sure, leaks are bad. Just not the ones we put in our newspaper and get Pulitzers for. I just hope Andy McCarthy wasn’t drinking hot coffee when he read it this morning.

And make sure to read this piece in Opinion Journal.

Confederate Yankee gets it about right:

Today’s Washington Post editorial Bad Targeting was probably left unsigned with the primary goal of protecting the reputation of the wretch assigned to excrete it. You can hardly blame them. If a name were ever assigned to this dunghill of journalistic excuses, the author would forever lose what credibility he or she retains.

The Post sticks with septic certainty to its allegation that the United States has (or had) secret prisons in Europe, even after investigation have found no proof of illegal renditions, and no proof that such prisons ever existed. None.

Actually, the existence of the prisons may be in some dispute but I think that the totality of the evidence points to our ferrying prisoners to at least a safe house type arrangement in a couple of eastern European countries. Whether they could be considered “prisons” or whether torture has been carried out there is still unproven.

He said…she said…they said.

Many are asking this morning about how these two statements can be reconciled:

A C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, said: “The officer was terminated for precisely the reasons we have given: unauthorized contacts with reporters and sharing classified information with reporters. There is no question whatsoever that the officer did both. The officer personally admitted doing both.”

“She did not leak any classified information, and she did not have access to the information apparently attributed to her by some government officials,” Washington lawyer Ty Cobb, who is representing veteran CIA analyst Mary McCarthy, said Monday.

Without putting too fine a point on things – and God, I hate people who use the English language as if it were the carcass of some dead cow, deliberately obscuring the meaning of what they’re trying to say by carving words out of sentences like a butcher carves a choice steak – and assuming both sides are choosing their words very, very carefully, one can immediately see where both statements may, in fact, be true.

Is there a difference between “leaking” classified information and “sharing” it? It would seem to be the case since according to some of her defenders, McCarthy had “permission” to brief reporters (probably on deep background) on some issues:

Associates, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of her sensitive legal situation, say the CIA authorized McCarthy on a number of occasions to talk with reporters. However, the details and timing remain unclear, including whether that was ever true after Goss took over in September 2004.

Leaking would be a crime. But suppose you “shared” more classified information than you were authorized to? The CIA could hardly send you to jail for stepping over some line that’s incredibly vague to begin with. This, and her unauthorized contacts with reporters that, according to the CIA, represented “a pattern of behavior” is why she was able to box up her possessions and walk unescorted out the door at Langley.

Is that the end of it? Not hardly. Mr. Cobb raises the first of what is sure to be many defense strawmen; she didn’t have access to classified information on the prison story. Just because she didn’t have access to the information doesn’t mean that she wasn’t aware of the existence of the prisons and was thus able to confirm part of Priest’s story.

But even if that’s the case, where or where did that part of the original story come from? From someone involved in an investigation of criminal wrongdoing – leaking classified information – at the Department of Justice:

A Justice Department spokesman said “no comment” on the firing. The spokesman also would not say whether the agency was looking into any criminal action against the officer. One law enforcement official said there were dozens of leak investigations under way.

A second law enforcement official confirmed said the CIA officer had provided information that contributed to a Washington Post story last year saying there were secret U.S. prisons in Eastern Europe.

McCarthy was smart to get a lawyer. If there are “dozens of leak investigations under way,” and she had a “pattern of behavior” of making “unauthorized contact” with “several reporters” she very well may be the focus of a preliminary investigation that DOJ will neither confirm or deny at this point.

Look for your next important series of leaks on this case from the Department of Justice.

UPDATE

The Commissar has an interesting “Matrix” showing the McCarthy connections to various Democrats and far left groups.

Take the red pill, Mary….

If there really is a war going on between the White House and the CIA (and even the Washington Post said exactly that) then the very first salvo of the conflict was fired on March 17, 2003 by one of the most unusual groups ever formed in the history of US intelligence.

Calling themselves Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), 25 ex-CIA officers threw down the gauntlet by calling on active duty intelligence professionals to damage the Bush Administration (and by extension, the government of the United States) by leaking the “truth” about the Iraq War:

Invoking the name of a Pentagon whistle-blower, a small group of retired, anti-war CIA officers are accusing the Bush administration of manipulating evidence against Iraq in order to push war while burying evidence that could show Iraq’s compliance with U.N demands for disarmament.

The 25-member group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, composed mostly of former CIA analysts along with a few operational agents, is urging employees inside the intelligence agency to break the law and leak any information they have that could show the Bush administration is engineering the release of evidence to match its penchant for war.

[...]

The group said officials who act as would-be whistle-blowers can use the same method as those now handing out information—giving it over to members of Congress who can both protect them and show the entire picture.

“They have to basically put conscience before career,” said Patrick Eddington, a VIPS member and former CIA agent who resigned in 1996 to protest what he describes as the agency’s refusal to investigate some of the possible causes of Gulf War veterans’ medical problems.

The question that has always nagged at me is that given the flood of leaks from the intelligence community both in the lead up and the aftermath of the Iraq war, what role (if any) did VIPS members play in facilitating those leaks?

Several VIPS members, including Larry Johnson, Mel Goodman, and Ray McGovern have emerged this past weekend, being quoted extensively in stories about the McCarthy leak case. The fact that they are never, ever identified as belonging to this far left group (their email address is in care of Counterpunch, the notorious left wing rag published by Alexander Cockburn) is almost surreal. Johnson can be safely dismissed as a publicity hound. But McGovern and Goodman have made it abundantly clear that they have it in for the Bush Administration.

Are there any strong connections between VIPS members and reporters? Certainly they appear together at forums like this CIP conference where Dana Priest shared the stage with Mel Goodman. So Goodman is out front defending McCarthy who is accused of leaking to Priest. And there’s proof that Goodman and Priest have at least a passing acquaintance.

Could such an association – casual and innocuous – have any meaning beyond coincidence?

VIPS is a group that has urged their colleagues to leak. Why is it so hard to believe that they would help in accomplishing that fact by acting as a go-between with the press? As a source for a journalist with the reputation of a Dana Priest, a VIPS member would enjoy a certain protection in that Priest would probably go to jail before exposing a source. And as an extra added bonus, the leaker could truthfully say that they never leaked that information to the press.

I want to be as cautious as possible in drawing any kind of conclusions. But here’s New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in promoting the group as pretty much of a non-partisan outfit:

But Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of retired spooks, issued an open letter to President Bush yesterday reflecting the view of many in the intel community that the central culprit is Vice President Dick Cheney. The open letter called for Mr. Cheney’s resignation.

Here’s what William Sjostrom writing in the Atlantic Monthly wrote about Kristoff’s lack of clarity:

Kristof cites mostly the alleged views of unnamed intelligence officials. So we just have his word for it. Among the only people cited by name are a newly formed outfit, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Kristof treats them as a disinterested group of non-partisan, non-ideological experts. These are not crazed anti-Bush fanatics, like Paul Krugman or ANSWER. Yeah, right.

And Sjostrom fills in some details about some of the ideology behind VIPS members:

VIPS does not seem to have a website, but its email is vips@counterpunch.org, and their open letter appears to have been published at CounterPunch (run by Alexander Cockburn, the Nation columnist), an outfit whose staple is stuff comparing Bush to Hitler. VIPS also published an open letter in opposition to the war at Common Dreams back in February. The spokesman for VIPS is Raymond McGovern, a retired CIA analyst. McGovern’s email is also at CounterPunch. He is giving a briefing today with Rep. Dennis Kucinich. McGovern has compared the Iraq war to Vietnam, even saying that it could lead to nuclear war. He has charged that if WMDs are found in Iraq, they may well have been planted. He believes Tenet’s job is safe because if Tenet were fired, he would reveal that the White House ignored intelligence warnings pre-9/11. McGovern has urged CIA analysts to illegally release classified documents to show what he believes to be true, specifically citing Daniel Ellsberg.

Another member of the VIPS steering committee is William Christison, who among other things believes that the Bush administration is attempting to colonize the Middle East, jointly with Israel. He believes that the war on terror is being used to turn the US into a military dictatorship. He is also a backer of the left-wing UrgentCall, along with people such as Noam Chomsky, Barbara Kingsolver, Julian Bond, and Jonathan Schell.

This “non-partisan” group also has several members involved with the National Security Whistelblowers, a group of professionals who have suffered persecution at various agencies, some of them for outing what they consider to be malfeasance by leaking to the press. Two names from that group – Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern – are of interest only because neither one of those worthy gentlemen blew the whistle on anybody or anything while they were on active duty. Only when President Bush came to power did they suddenly believe it necessary to support whistleblowers. A question that comes to my mind is what reason would those two gentlemen have in associating with leakers?

When Russ Tice, the self-proclaimed leaker of the NSA intercept program came in from the cold, none other than Ray McGovern was shepherding him around town from interview to interview. Tice may or may not be the ultimate source for the New York Times on the NSA intercept program but it is just a bit odd that he would attach himself to a man who urged people like him to leak secrets to the press.

I will repeat for those of you who may have missed this post: I am not a believer in conspiracy theories as a general rule and especially in this case where much more evidence is required to prove any collusion between VIPS and the media in leaking classified data. Having said that, some enterprising journalist may want to look into this web of innocuous but rather curious connections and see if there’s anything to the notion that members of VIPS may have acted as a conduit to the press in passing along classified information from active duty intelligence personnel.

That thud you heard about halfway through last night’s show was the simultaneous sound of my jaw hitting the floor and the other shoe in this gargantuan plot dropping out of the clear blue sky. The stage is set for a thrilling final 4 hours as we now know that Jack’s ultimate target is not President Logan but rather a shadowy group of men whose power play for oil in Central Asia may or not be their ultimate goal.

And Logan? He’s no more in charge of this conspiracy than my pet cat Aramas. He’s a cutout, a cardboard stick figure being used by the cabal of…what are they? Commodities traders? Stock jobbers? They appear to be a group of GenX business school grads who have somehow convinced the upper echelons of the United States government to go along with their plot. Appearing much too soft to be ex-military or CIA, it could be that the creator of the show Joel Surnow has taken all this talk of “corporate fascism” to heart and is positing a scenario where these guys have wormed their way into government by using Henderson and his contacts at DoD in order to get the ball rolling. When and how Logan came into the plot (their leader Graham mentioned they had been working 18 months on the plan) could mean that even Marwan, last year’s baddie, may be partly their creation and the shootdown of Air Force I that brought Logan to power might be attributed to them.

Even Jack is beginning to suspect the truth when, after Heller falls on his sword, he confronts Henderson asking, “What happened to you?” Jack thinks it’s Henderson’s lust for power but is it?. Whatever it is, Jack thinks it much more than simple, misguided patriotism.

If this is indeed all about oil, I will be very disappointed. Although, by the time the last episode airs it may seem more important what with the cost of gas about to top $3 a gallon on the way up to God knows where. Maybe we’ll feel a little differently then.

SUMMARY

As Jack attends to Audrey’s profusely bleeding arm, the Secretary of Defense calls and wants to know what happened. Jack, much too polite to say “I told you so” to his former boss and father of the love of his life, nevertheless makes it clear that he feels Heller “betrayed” him by locking him in a storeroom to rot. Heller tells Jack that he must get that tape back or all is lost, a sentiment for which Jack is once again too polite to say “duh.” In the end, Jack hangs up on the third most powerful man in government.

Jack then makes a call to Bill and is surprised and delighted to find that Chloe is with him. He tells her that he needs her to hack CTU’s satellite feeds so that they can track Buckaroo Banzai’s car.

After telling Jack that she’ll get right on it, a precious bit of by-play between Chloe and Bill reminds us why we love Chloe to death:

CHLOE: If we’re going to do extensive satellite tracking, I’m going to need more than my laptop. I’m going to have to network onto your computer even though it is kind of pathetic. And I need you to get that screen to work for me.

BILL: Alright.

CHLOE: I hope you don’t mind me bossing you around but technically, I don’t work for you anymore.

BILL: (wearily) It’s alright Chloe.

When Chloe first showed up at Bill’s house, I started to think that maybe the easy-going Bill would be the perfect love match for the manic Chloe. However, after listening to that exchange, the truth began to dawn on me; the only possible love match for Chloe would be Darth Vader. And even old Darth would be left speechless at times.

After hacking into the satellite feed, Chloe finds Buckaroo’s car and tells Jack who has put Audrey into the stolen police car (that no one in the entire state of California seems very interested in finding) and gone in hot pursuit of his former colleague. Audrey worries that Banzai will destroy the tape. Not to worry says a knowing Jack. Henderson will need that tape for insurance.

Indeed he does as Buckaroo’s call to Logan demonstrates. Logan, all oily and smarmy, asks Banzai why he hasn’t destroyed the tape. When Henderson says he needs the tape for insurance, Logan gets all huffy but to no avail. Buckaroo Banzai is the smartest crook on the show and knows exactly what the score is. He realizes that once the op is over, he’s toast, a fact that’s confirmed later when Logan speaks to Mr. Big.

Thanks to Chloe’s superior geek skills, Jack catches up to Banzai and runs him off the road. Henderson takes cover in a barn and after a short firefight, Jack corners the bastard and takes him into custody. Unfortunately, Henderson has outfoxed Jack once again, handing off the tape to a confederate prior to his capture. What follows turns out to be one of the more brutal, wrenching scenes all year.

Henderson informs Jack that unless he’s allowed to leave, he’ll have his men who have been following Secretary Heller in a helicopter make Audrey an orphan. Calling Heller to confirm this, Jack makes it clear that he’s about to let Henderson go when the Secretary, proving our high opinion of his courage, tells Jack that he won’t be a pawn to be used by Logan and Henderson. We’re not quite sure what he means until he asks Jack to tell Audrey that he loves her. Then, not quite believing our eyes, Heller drives his car deliberately over a cliff and into a lake where, upside down, the car begins to sink.

The agony expressed in Audrey’s wailing “Oh no!” and Jack’s rage at Henderson explodes in one of the more dramatic confrontations of the year:

JACK: How could you do this? This isn’t about you doing what is best for the country. This is about your greed for power. You are responsible for killing ex-President David Palmer and the Secretary of Defense, two real patriots. DAMN YOU! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?

Almost everyone he loves and respects has been killed. Tony, Michelle, Palmer, Edgar, and now Secretary Heller, all victims of this insane plot. His outburst at Henderson had a flavor of desperation, as if he wouldn’t be able to take much more pain and suffering. His pistol whipping of Banzai was pure emotional release.

Logan calls Graham to update him. Mr. Big is a geeky looking fellow with weird glasses and horrible taste in clothes. The actor who plays him, Paul McCrane, also portrayed the playful astronaut Pete Conrad in HBO’s excellent series From the Earth to the Moon as well as Dr. Romano on ER. And while we really haven’t seen enough of him yet, he doesn’t strike me as much of a heavy (although Romano was a real SOB at times).

Mr. Big plays Logan like a harp. He congratulates him on handling the many crisis that popped up during the day including the news confirming earlier speculation that Walt Cummings did not commit suicide but was murdered. Logan grovels by thanking Mr. Big for recognizing his hard work. Meantime, Mr. Big tells Logan to shut Martha up because she’s getting close to the truth. Logan promises to take care of Martha just like he took care of Aaron Pierce who may have been written out of the show, dead or alive.

This is because we are told, when Martha asks, that Aaron has been “transferred.” Martha ain’t buying it and neither do we. That’s when the antithesis of the heroic Pierce, traitorous Agent Adams, leads Martha to where she thinks her husband is but turns out to be a prison. Adams locks the door, trapping poor Martha and deepening the mystery of Aaron’s disappearance.

Back at the barn, Jack finds out that Buckaroo doesn’t have the tape on him and asks Chloe to look into the possibility of a handoff between Henderson and a confederate. Sure enough, Chloe spots where it occurred and informs Jack that the car with the tape is headed back to Van Nuys, eventually going to the very same airport where Jack had just come from. After telling Chloe to call Curtis to come and take custody of Banzai, Audrey demands that Jack go after that tape else her father would have died in vain. Dubious but left with little choice, Jack once again gets into his invisible police car, leaving Audrey with Buckaroo Banzai and a gun.

At CTU, Miles, puffed up like the bureaucratic peacock that he is, informs Granny Hayes that the transfer of authority to DHS is complete…and it was done with 2 hours to spare! Holy Jesus let us hope that the real bureaucrats at DHS were not used as a model for Miles. Just as Miles is congratulating himself, the security dunces realize (after about 45 minutes) that Chloe has flown the coop. In reviewing the security tape, they discover that Sweet Sherry let Chloe go which results in Sherry being taken into custody. Hearing this, Miles realizes that Chloe will probably try and help Jack which sends him off to a computer to try and track back to where Chloe is obviously hacking into the system.

Granny’s confrontation with Sherry is painful. The obviously disturbed young sweety tells a curious Hayes about Chloe’s revelation that Logan is behind the day’s events. Seeing the wheels spinning in Granny’s head, we begin to root for the woman to put two and two together and come up with the truth.

At the ranch, Martha is starting to go nutzo again until Charles pays her a visit. It is unclear to me whether Logan really loves her or is just manipulating her feelings. Whatever the truth of the matter, Logan spills the whole sordid mess to Martha who recoils in anger and disgust. Once again, Logan trots out that last refuge of scoundrels; patriotism. He committed all these evil deeds “for the country.” Martha is sickened by his faux love for America telling him that she not only can’t forgive his treachery, but that she hates him to boot. Nevertheless, she will keep her mouth shut, a promise that somehow I don’t believe will last beyond the doorway. Watch for Martha and Mike to team up to battle the conspiracy from the inside with Granny Hayes and Chloe running the technical end of things and Jack as the sharp end of the stick.

After getting assurances from Logan that Martha is “taken care of,” Mr. Big gives us a tantalizing two minutes of background, telling us that the plot has been in the works for 18 months and that no “deal” he’s ever been involved in didn’t appear to be going south at the 11th hour. Does this make him an investment banker? A takeover specialist for Bear Stearns? We also find out that he’s doing all this for his kids which again points back to oil but at this point, could mean anything.

Back at the barn, Henderson tries a little psy-ops on Audrey which is not a good idea considering the fact that 1) she’s lost a lot of blood, 2) lost her father, and 3) is losing her mind. Not falling for Banzai’s Jedi mind tricks, Audrey bides her time – something she is running out of. For when Chloe calls Jack and tells him that Henderson’s 4th crew of baddies is on the way to the barn, Jack realizes that he won’t be there to take them out so he calls Audrey and tells her to scram. Watching the helicopter with Banzai’s men in it set down next to the barn, Audrey realizes she’s got to go; but not before she makes an effort to off Henderson herself. This is something she is incapable of doing being a civilized human being.

After being freed by his crew, Buckaroo orders his 3 men to search the barn and kill Audrey. Unable to get out the back door, Audrey starts looking for a hiding place when bless my soul if Curtis isn’t already in perfect position to ambush one more of Henderson’s endless supply of bad guys. The TAC team routinely takes out all three terrorists and takes Henderson into custody. Being informed of this, Jack has Curtis go back to CTU and get Audrey the medical attention she should have had an hour ago and also try and protect Henderson from Logan’s stooges who are certainly firmly embedded at CTU.

Jack tells Curtis this from his perch at the airport where he sees what turns out to be a diplomatic charter about to take off to an unknown destination. He knows the tape is on that plane just as he knows what he has to do to get it. Jack sneaks past the heavy security by hiding on top of a fuel truck. Once again, Jack calls on Chloe to work some geek magic as he desperately needs the passenger manifest in order to figure out who might have the tape. Chloe sounds dubious given that she has to get past a State Department firewall but starts to give it her best shot.

And then things start to go south. Miles has a Eureaka! moment when he finally figures out how Chloe has been accessing the system. He finds out that Chloe has been at Bill’s all this time and a TAC team is dispatched to pick her up.

But Granny Hayes is starting to put it all together and realizes that she can’t trust anyone at CTU which means she may very well need Chloe to help. She calls the surprised Bill and tells him to get Chloe out of there before the TAC team arrives. Chloe refuses realizing how important that passenger list is to Jack.

At the airport, Jack sees his opening and takes it. Pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, he pretends he’s a baggage handler loading the plane. Grabbing two bags from a passing baggage cart (pity the poor owner of those bags who inadvertently is helping to save the American Republic) Jack meanders onto the plane and hides in the unpressurized baggage compartment. Jack will have to get out of there before the plane hits 10,000 feet or he’ll suffocate from lack of oxygen. But he’s not thinking about that now. The important thing is that he’s on the plane and his quarry is in sight.

BODY COUNT

3 more of Henderson’s men bite the dust. Jack was shut out. Is Heller really dead? We’ll give it a week.

JACK: 30

SHOW: 184

SPECULATION

Is Miles a good witch, or a bad witch? Is he more loyal to the bureaucracy or will he turn out to be loyal to Granny Hayes? Miles has been drawn so broadly as a bureaucratic caricature, I don’t think personal loyalty enters into his calculations. He may not be working directly for Logan, but once he sees Granny going off the reservation, he’ll call the President personally in order to get credit for turning Granny in.

UPDATE

Don’t forget to visit Blogs4Bauer for the best 24 summaries and updates around.

The Mary McCarthy story just took a fascinating turn with the revelation that high powered criminal attorney Ty Cobb has taken on McCarthy as a client.

What is significant about Mr. Cobb is that he defended some of the highest profile criminals in the Clinton Administration including cabinet officers, a White House staffer, and a former Senator:

Represents the chief financial officer of major public company in an SEC investigation of significant restatement and alleged misconduct. (Jeff Skilling?)

Represented a former Commerce Department official and Democratic National Committee official, John Huang, in connection with Congressional and DOJ investigations (and related civil actions) involving campaign finance and the Clinton-Gore campaign of 1996.

If someone would fill in those blank names (too busy this AM) I would appreciate it.

The point is, why does little ole whistleblower Mary McCarthy rate such heavy Democratic party artillery? Especially if she’s not under indictment. Especially if the case hasn’t been referred to the Justice Department.

AJ Strata thinks McCarthy is making a mistake by relying on this particular attorney and I agree. It appears that Mr. Cobb was hired by others – not to defend McCarthy so much (defend her from what?) but to manage information coming out of leaks at the CIA on the case. He can deny, deny, and deny again that she leaked but as Mac points out, she signed a statement admitting wrongdoing.

My post last night on McCarthy pointed out that she may have been simply a facilitator for the press, confirming or denying specific information to keep reporters on track with their stories. But even if she leaked like a sieve and sang like a canary, the question you have to ask is: How has a woman who may not be in any danger at all from prosecution been able to procure the services of a $750 per hour attorney like Ty Cobb whose client list reads like the attendees at a Bill Clinton private Sybaris party?

Just wondering…

A story appearing in Newsweek contends that according to Mary McCarthy’s patron at the National Security Council during the Clinton years Rand Beers, McCarthy “categorically denies” leaking classified information on the secret prison story to Dana Priest of the Washington Post. In fact, McCarthy denies leaking classified information at any time to any reporter according to her lawyer:

McCarthy’s lawyer, Ty Cobb, told NEWSWEEK this afternoon that contrary to public statements by the CIA late last week, McCarthy never confessed to agency interrogators that she had divulged classified information and “didn’t even have access to the information” in The Washington Post story in question.

After being told by agency interrogators that she may have been deceptive on one question during a polygraph, McCarthy did acknowledge that she had failed to report contacts with Washington Post reporter Dana Priest and at least one other reporter, said a source familiar with her account who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. McCarthy has known Priest for some time, the source said.

This is only slightly disingenuous. The way that a reporter like Priest gets a story like the one on secret prisons is by piecing together a hint here, a whisper there usually leaked as office gossip from low level staffers or by some intelligent guesswork using open sources. Then, when they think they have the outlines of a story, they sit down and have a drink with a Mary McCarthy and say something like “This is what the CIA is doing, right?” at which point our leaker will nod their head or shake it vigorously. She reveals no classified information, she simply confirms what the reporter thinks they already have. In short, by confirming or denying information, the leaker keeps the reporter on the right track without technically violating their oath of secrecy.

What McCarthy doesn’t say is whether or not she steered Priest to other sources who were willing to be more forthcoming in their treachery.

Could the Administration be firing McCarthy in order to make an example of her? This is always a possibility, especially since word has leaked out from the CIA (natch!) that the Administration is interested in the political affiliations of some of its top intel people:

The White House also has recently barraged the agency with questions about the political affiliations of some of its senior intelligence officers, according to intelligence officials.

You’d think the White House could find that information out for themselves by using Google or going to Opensecrets.com. Laziness or stupidity? I report, you decide.

Does it matter if someone with access to agency secrets is a Democrat? Plame apologist Larry Johnson (who has been all over the pages of both the Times and the Post) doesn’t think so:

Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who got into a dispute with McCarthy in the late l980s when she was his supervisor and remains critical of her management style, nonetheless says that he “never saw her allow her political [views] to cloud her analytical judgment.” Johnson maintains the Bush White House is “really damaging the intelligence community” by sending a message to career officials that “unless you are a partisan of the party in power, you cannot be trusted.” This message, Johnson says, is destroying the intelligence community’s “professional ethos.”

Excuse me, but ever since this doltish braggart left a comment on this site threatening me by saying that he knew the guys who had killed drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and that I better watch what I say about Plame, I haven’t had the friendliest of feelings toward him.

And with that quote, Johnson doesn’t disappoint as far as showing how breathtakingly stupid he is. No one is concerned that her “political views cloud[ed] her judgement.” That aspect of McCarthy’s partisanship has never been brought up by the White House, by any member of Congress, by any conservative columnist, or by any conservative blogger. It is a strawman pure and simple. It’s not her analytical skills that are being questioned, Larry. It’s her loyalty. Not to Republicans but to the agency she served. This, of course, makes your other statement that “unless you are a partisan of the party in power, you cannot be trusted,” equally ridiculous.

But Johnson’s ignorance aside, if the McCarthy firing has a chilling effect on agency personnel talking to reporters, I would put that down as a definite plus. So if the Administration is actually trying to dampen the enthusiasm of CIA employees for talking to the press, McCarthy would seem to have been the perfect sacrificial lamb:

McCarthy, 61, a career CIA analyst who was working in the inspector general’s office, was then told on Thursday that she was being fired. She was not escorted out of the CIA building, the source said. She also had been assured that the CIA would protect her privacy—just one day before her name became publicly known as the agency official who had been dismissed for leaking to the press, the source said. Ironically, McCarthy, who previously worked as chief intelligence official for the National Security Council during Bill Clinton’s second term, was planning on retiring from the CIA soon to pursue a new career as a lawyer working on adoption and family cases.

Headed for retirement anyway and someone with several contacts in the news media:

After being told by agency interrogators that she may have been deceptive on one question during a polygraph, McCarthy did acknowledge that she had failed to report contacts with Washington Post reporter Dana Priest and at least one other reporter, said a source familiar with her account who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. McCarthy has known Priest for some time, the source said.

In other words, McCarthy may have been a kind of confirmation machine for the bevy of national security correspondents who prowl the halls of power in Washington. Need a story confirmed about some CIA secret program? Let’s call Mary and see if she’s free for dinner.

I’m being facetious, of course. But in sacking McCarthy, who even lefties have to admit was an easy target – Porter Goss and the Administration may finally be saying “You’ve been warned. The gloves are off.”

Welcome news, if true.

UP TO 20,000 KNOXVILLE RESIDENTS TURNED OUT TO WELCOME HOME TENNESSEE’S 287TH REGIMENTAL COMBAT TEAM FROM IRAQ

It was almost a year ago that we were subjected by the press to non-stop, wall to wall coverage of the vigil outside of the President’s ranch by that Maven of Peace, that Rosa Parks of the Anti-War Movement, that Mother of Moonbats Cindy Sheehan.

We were told at the time that, like a comet that portends the future, Sheehan’s mass movement would sweep aside George Bush and the Republicans while bringing the troops in Iraq home. This unstoppable mass of humanity would be a powerful force for change that was growing every day and one might as well stand in front of a freight train as try and stop it.

But something strange happened on Mother Sheehan’s ride toward immortality; hardly anyone else got on the train with her:

To this day, Sheehan is still a player in search of an audience, still desperately seeking attention as saner liberals tip toe away in embarrassment having once supported her. The fact that her unhinged rhetoric (she once called New Orleans “an occupied city”) has made her a laughingstock on the right still doesn’t seem to stop the media from writing glowing paeans to her and her cause.

I bring this up because yesterday, the residents of Knoxville showed Sheehan and all the other lefties what a real mass movement is: patriotic Americans welcoming home troops and thanking them for a job well done:

Up to 20,000 people turned out Saturday for a parade to welcome home the National Guard’s 278th Regimental Combat Team, providing a big-city atmosphere powered by small-town values.

The rains that had been pelting the region ceased and the clouds gave way to bright sunshine for the two-hour Celebrate Freedom Parade 2006 through downtown Knoxville.

“What a great sight this is on the street today,” said Gov. Phil Bredesen as he reviewed the 2,500 members of the 278th standing in parade formation wearing their camouflage uniforms. As governor, Bredesen is commander of the Tennessee National Guard.

Bredesen said the men and women of the 278th who were deployed to Iraq for a year represent “what is the very best of our state and the very best of our nation.”

“I thank you for your courage and sacrifices,” the governor told the soldiers. “You left as trained citizens and you came back as warriors.”

Kudos to the Governor and the residents of Knoxville for showing the rest of America how to really support the troops.

Hopefully, this will give other cities and towns the idea to show our heroes how much we truly appreciate their sacrifices and respect the job that they and their comrades still in harms way are doing to advance the cause of freedom in Iraq.

And then there is this from a father who lost a son in Iraq who came out to welcome home his dead son’s friends and comrades:

Gary Lee Reese Sr., of Ashland City, Tenn., lost his 22-year-old son Sgt. Gary L. Reese Jr. on Aug. 13, 2005, to a similar [IED] device. Serving in Iraq, Reese said, provided his son a perspective on life he never would have gained otherwise.

“I think the soldiers saw that these people should have the opportunity to have what we have,” Reese said. “He stood up for the right thing, and I’m very proud of that,” Reese said. He added he rarely saw a picture of his son in Iraq without children surrounding the soldier.

“Those little kids who got to know Lee knew he wasn’t there to teach them how to strap bombs on. He was there to help them have what he has.

“I know his life wasn’t wasted because he gave those children an opportunity see who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.”

We’ll give John Hinderaker the last word:

Amid all of the adoring publicity that is lavished on extremists like Cindy Sheehan, or malcontents like the seven now-famous generals, couldn’t the dominant media find just a moment to take note of Mr. Reese’s inexpressibly noble perspective on his son’s life and death?

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

Like a bad penny, we just can’t seem to rid ourselves of the irksome presence of John Kerry.

Ostensibly still a Senator, (although you’d be hard pressed to come up with anything noteworthy the former Presidential candidate has ever done in that august body and did I mention that he once served in Viet Nam?) Kerry pops up like a Jack-in-the-Box every time an issue arises that gives him the opportunity to prove himself to the group of rabid, unbalanced, deranged Bush bashers who now officially make up the base of the Democratic party.

In a speech on Saturday given at historic Faneuil Hall, the Massachusetts Senator helped prove to us all over again how much the Lord really does care about America when He denied this man’s overweening ambition and gargantuan hubris by repudiating his claim to the Presidency:

“I believed then, just as I believe now, that it is profoundly wrong to think that fighting for your country overseas and fighting for your country’s ideals at home are contradictory or even separate duties,” he said. “They are, in fact, two sides of the very same patriotic coin.”

“Once again, we are imprisoned in a failed policy,” he said. “And once again, we are being told that admitting mistakes, not the mistakes themselves, will provide our enemies with an intolerable propaganda victory.”

The idea that our soldiers working to bring democracy and order to Iraq have anything in common whatsoever with the dirty necked galoots and Birkenstock sandal wearers who are in favor of hanging George Bush from a sour apple tree while running away before the job is done in Iraq – a job already bought and paid for with the lives of thousands of Americans and Iraqis – is ludicrous. In fact, the dichotomy between soldier and protester in this case is so radical, it invites ridicule.

But the former celebrity traitor would need to develop some humility to realize the irony inherent in his remarks, an admittedly remote prospect. For as we all know, it is not “admitting mistakes” that the Massachusetts Senator is after but rather evidence for an impeachment trial that he and his fellow partisans will seek to bring about if they achieve majority status in November. And curiously, they will seek to use a Viet Nam template to impress their claims for impeachment on the people:

Among the similarities, according to Kerry: The justification for each war was “based on official deception”; the attempt to cast the struggles as part of a larger global conflict was a “misperception”; and, in Iraq as in Vietnam, “we have stayed and fought and died, even though it is time for us to go.”

It is eerie how those talking points all seem to have been buttressed in recent years by a series of selective leaks from our intelligence agencies. The “official deception” idea – the President ignoring “evidence” that there was no WMD in Iraq – has been bolstered by several cherry picked analyses going back to 2003 including the infamous imbroglio over Niger uranium being sought by Saddam portrayed as a canard. And the “misperception” in Iraq finds numerous examples of leaks designed to show that the Administration was warned of all the dire consequences (many of which like 500,000 war refugees and Iraqis starving by the millions never coming to pass) that we are experiencing today.

The firing of former National Security Council staffer and CIA employee Mary McCarthy for leaking a story to the Washington Post’s Dana Priest about secret “black prisons” in Europe where some of the most important al Qaeda suspects were being held may start unraveling a loose network of disgruntled, partisan tattletales who took it upon themselves to decide what American policies were “moral” and, even more despicably, sought to undermine a war they didn’t agree with and defeat a President they loathed.

Without benefit of having the broad view available to top policymakers and our elected leaders, they nevertheless allowed themselves to believe they had been granted special insight by virtue of their privileged positions in the intelligence community. They appointed themselves arbiters of American policy believing as they obviously do that their judgement was superior to that of the people they ostensibly are supposed to serve.

All this would be bad enough if it weren’t for the clear, partisanship demonstrated in the lead-up to the Presidential campaign by selectively leaking information that damaged the President at the worst possible times. The Wall Street Journal noticed this in an editorial 2 days before the first debate of the campaign in 2004 and immediately after an analysis regarding the possibility of a post-war insurgency was leaked to the New York Times:

Keep in mind that none of these CIA officials were ever elected to anything, and that they are employed to provide accurate information to officials who present their policy choices for voter judgment. Yet what the CIA insurgents are essentially doing here, with their leaks and insubordination, is engaging in a policy debate. Given the timing of the latest leaks so close to an election, they are now clearly trying to defeat President Bush and elect John Kerry. Yet somehow the White House stands accused of “politicizing” intelligence?

This has been the thrust of the CIA’s war against the White House that has been underway since it became clear that the Bush Administration was determined to effect regime change in Iraq. And now, one of those partisans has been caught red handed.

Mary McCarthy is not some selfless, conscience-ridden bureaucrat who was driven to leak a top secret CIA program out of patriotic devotion. She was, in effect, a mole for the Democratic party ensconced in one of the most sensitive jobs at the Agency. The fact that she and her husband gave nearly $10,000 to John Kerry’s campaign (including a revealing $5,000 donation to the Ohio Democratic party less than a month before the election) should lay to rest the silly notion that McCarthy was anything but Democratic party apparatchik.

This is not to say, of course, that she was part of any “grand conspiracy” of partisans at the agency and party leaders. But it does prove the existence of a group at the CIA who would rather violate their secrecy oaths than support the goals of the Administration in Iraq.

Working in the Inspector General’s office, McCarthy was privy to a wide variety of compartmentalized classified information. In short, she was in a perfect position to dole out leaks to reporters who were as eager as herself to damage the prospects of the President for re-election and, failing that, undermine support for the war among the American people. According to sources at the CIA, her leak to Dana Priest about the secret prisons (prisons that investigators for the EU have failed twice to prove existed) was the tip of the iceberg, that indications are McCarthy leaked several times, perhaps regarding several issues.

And this brings us back to John Kerry and his idea of “dissent.” If the group of leakers at the CIA were so hell bent on “dissenting” from the President’s policies in Iraq, they, like the group of retired generals who recently came out calling for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign, had other options open to them. Since it is difficult to believe that Mary McCarthy is unaware of the existence of others at the CIA whose views reflect her own, they could have and should have done the honorable thing and resign their positions. I daresay a bevy of resignations at the CIA coupled with a very public, very loud denunciation of the President’s policies would have had a far greater impact on the public than sneaking around in dark corners and furtively handing envelopes containing state secrets to liberal reporters.

The culture of leaking that McCarthy and others have developed at the CIA has little to do with honest dissent. The idea that dissent, even in peacetime, does not come without personal cost is wrong. The act of voicing opposition to majority policies carries with it a responsibility to accept the consequences of being ostracized or becoming unpopular. In wartime, more may be asked of the dissenter only because the stakes are much higher. And while the constitutional rights of the dissenter must be protected, that doesn’t mean that the dissenter can both violate an oath to protect that constitution by leaking secrets that damage national security or our foreign policy and still enjoy the fruits of their perfidy by remaining in a position where they can further harm America’s cause.

It is dishonorable to expect protection for dissenting in this way. And the fact that the press and liberals have leapt to McCarthy’s defense by saying that her leaking is nothing more than some kind of heroism is almost beyond belief. McCarthy took it upon herself to make public a policy for which some of our allies desperately needed to remain a secret lest they be targeted by our enemies for terrorist attacks. It may be hyperbole to posit the notion that anyone who dies in terrorist attacks in those eastern European countries where the secret prisons were supposed to be located and were named in the leaked information, that it would be McCarthy’s hands stained with the blood of those innocents. But it points up the serious consequences of deciding American policy based on one’s personal idea of morality.

Tough talk, that. But unless we begin to realize the real damage that these leaks are causing, it will be impossible to generate the kind of public outcry against the leakers that will bring their nefarious efforts to a close once and for all.

Responsible dissent is one thing. Certainly there are millions of Americans who, for a variety of reasons – some of which are based on a misinformation campaign carried out by Democrats and their allies in the press that is unprecedented in its ferocity – oppose the war in Iraq. And then there are those like Mary McCarthy and John Kerry who see dissent as a way to political gain.

One kind of dissent is worth defending. The other should be held in as much contempt as we should hold the people who practice it.

It is very tempting when looking at Mary McCarthy’s fascinating connections to heavy hitters in the Democratic party national security establishment to try and connect the dots to form what Varifrank has called “The Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory.” And while not entirely dismissing out of hand such a possibility, I believe such thinking neglects a much more mundane and common explanation.

Mary McCarthy is part of a very exclusive community of like minded Democrats numbering at most 200 experts in national security and foreign affairs who staffed the Clinton Administration’s Departments of Defense and State (and the much more exclusive National Security Council). These were the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries that flesh out any administration and get their jobs thanks to both their political connections and their experience in foreign and military policy.

This experience comes from a variety of places including our intelligence agencies, military staff jobs, foreign service postings, think tanks, and Capitol Hill staff positions. They provide an invaluable service to the party by constantly developing policy prescriptions and position papers that bubble and froth by being debated and shaped at conferences and forums until a consensus of sorts is reached.

In McCarthy’s case, she was running with an exclusive club indeed if Sandy Berger and Rand Beers were her patrons at the NSC. But that alone doesn’t prove that her actions in leaking were part of conspiracy nor does it make it probable that those worthies mentioned above even knew she would violate her oath of secrecy so brazenly. Her contacts with Berger and Beers were probably confined to seeing them at the numerous conferences and scholarly forums where the rest of the Democratic contribution to the military industrial complex meet.

The Republicans, of course, have a similar group albeit much larger but perhaps more disciplined. Where the Democrats have a half dozen major think tanks with another dozen or so small but influential policy groups, the Republicans have a remarkable network of scholars, ex-military, ex-intelligence and foreign service as well as former bureaucrats who work through long established think tanks like The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

I read a few years back where the turnover of scholars at Republican think tanks is much quicker than their Democratic counterparts which allows for more voices to take part in the policy debates that both of these institutional networks depend on to clarify and formulate the party’s positions. For McCarthy, her stint at The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) was the result of a common practice in the national security establishment of making sure that the agency’s “voice” was heard in the upper reaches of a political party’s councils. There are similar sabbaticals granted to Republican employees so that they can fulfill a similar purpose.

Whether she volunteered for the CSIS assignment or chosen is unknown. But the fact that the CSIS is generally thought of as a Democratic party organ made her return to the CIA in 2003 a problem given that a Republican Administration was running things. As has been pointed out, her being assigned to the Inspector General’s office could be considered a demotion from the position she had prior to leaving the CIA in 2001 (the NSC staff). 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?

Just thinking out loud…

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.