4/25: Leak or No Leak?

The debate over the CIA's dismissal of analyst Mary McCarthy continues to dominate the blogosphere. Team McCarthy already has big-name surrogates issuing press denials and her atty's in full spin mode. Their statements might work at slowing the MSM coverage of the scandal, but every new person that joins McCarthy's defense just becomes another blogger target. Lefty bloggers can't quite figure out which of their arguments are the best yet, and are instead urging patience until more facts are out.

Also today, the blogs react to reports that Fox News analyst Tony Snow is the WH new press secretary, President Bush gets no blogger love for his gas announcement, a WH'08 candidate round up, and a new blogger spotlight.

Not that the story was in any danger of dying, but Newsweek's 4/24 report including former NSC staffer, and Kerry adviser, Rand Beers denial on behalf of McCarthy set the blogosphere in full tizzy. Captain's Quarters questioned Beers statement: "For one thing, if McCarthy feels that she has been railroaded, why have Beers issue the denial? Why not just hold a press conference and deny it in person? Why, it sounds almost like a leak!Beers has no real details to give the media as part of this denial, except to say that McCarthy never admitted to giving Priest the information on the detention centers, and that she had no access to that data anyway."

Having Beers play spokesperson turned out to be an open invitation for more conspiracy theories. JPod at The Corner: "So Newsweek is reporting that Mary McCarthy denies being the leaker. This despite stories in the press saying that she failed a polygraph and admitted to it. McCarthy's not the the one who told Newsweek. Do you know who did? Her "close friend" Rand Beers. Who's Rand Beers? The National Security Council staffer who quit in 2003 and went to work as John Kerry's senior national security campaign adviser. You know who else is Rand Beers's old friend from the National Security Council staff? Joseph C. Wilson IV. Just saying." California Conservative felt the need to do him one better: "Beers isn't the only Kerry activist that McCarthy worked with. She worked with Joe Wilson. In fact, they worked on African intel in 1997 & 1998. That isn't the only troubling thing about McCarthy, Wilson and Beers. It's been reported that Dana Priest's husband, William Goodfellow, runs an organization called the Center for International Policy. According to Rush, one of CIP's clients is the Fenton Group, which is an anti-war organization."

Righty bloggers also weren't terribly happy with the performance of McCarthy's lawyer either. Rightwing Nuthouse found her atty's claims that McCarthy did not confess and did not have access to the information "slightly disingenuous." He explains: "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." Kesher Talk and Strata-Sphere agree.

Not all righties righty bloggers are ready to condemn McCarthy. Fresh from vacation Andrew Sullivan can't escape shake the Abu Ghraib prism through which he views everything: "And, in principle, of course, they're all right. It is against the law for CIA officials to be leaking extremely classified information - especially information as sensitive as secret detention facilities. But all these comments seem to me to have ignored the critical and unmissable context. Yes, leaking is against the law. But what if the leaker is exposing something as grave as illegal torture? Isn't that when a leak becomes the blowing of a whistle? In an inversion as hideous as at Abu Ghraib, Bush's CIA was twisted into a reflection of our former enemy."

While not a direct response, Captain's Quarters ain't buying: "Another defense argues that the nation's laws safeguarding intelligence has an opt-out clause, a "public-interest defense", the kind of argument made by people who have never held a clearance in their lives. The public-interest defense has no basis in reality, and clearances do not grant everyone who holds them the legal authority to decide whether classified information should be released in the public interest. Besides, if McCarthy really thought that the program either violated the law or the public interest, she had other avenues to take, as I wrote yesterday. She could go to the FBI or the Department of Justice, if the program violated US laws or international treaties ratified by the Senate." Blue Crab Boulevard agrees: "This kind of behavior by a trusted CIA officer damages the country and the intelligence gathering capabilities of our agencies. Period."

And of course it wouldn't be a full blown blogswarm without MSM complaints. From Frum at NRO: "Actually the contrast between the media response to Plame and that to the alleged McCarthy leak is too glaring even to make for good sport." And News Busters complaints about David Cloud's latest New York Times piece: "It's ironic that Cloud floats right by this example of selective leaking of intelligence information by President Clinton, characterizing it passively as having simply somehow "spilled into the press," especially after all the hullabaloo the Times has put Bush through over his alleged "leak" of information, via Lewis Libby, about Saddam Hussein's quest for uranium in Africa." PrairiePundit has more general complaints: "McCarthy has made every Democrat contributor who works at the CIA a suspect, but most of the media is avoiding the donkey in the room issue.

The hypocrisy line that dominated lefty response over the weekend faded into a more disjointed three pronged response: She didn't do it; if she did, it doesn't matter because it wasn't secret; even if it was secret its just political payback typical of this WH. No one blogger hits all three, but they all hit a few. No Quarter hits the second two: "Almost all of the information on the CIA's secret extraordinary rendition program was readily available from unclassified sources (i.e., any information from McCarthy may not have been the linchpin for Priest's story)...After his resignation from the NSA, Beers shocked all who knew him by joining John Kerry's campaign as its counterterrorism expert. A year later, Ms. McCarthy, for her part, donated $2,000 to the Kerry campaign. Their aid to the Kerry candidacy is an implicit indication of their opposition to Bush's counterterrorism policies, and perhaps of their desperate desire, like ours, to rid our country of a wholly inept and dangerous presidency. It also may have made them enemies of the administration, contributing, perhaps, to McCarthy's firing and outing as an accused leaker of classified information.

Larry Johnson at TPM Cafe leads the charge on the no harm no foul defense: "Now that Newsweek has slowed the Mary McCarthy lynch mob with its story that Mary emphatically denies she was the source of the leak, it is worth considering whether there are good leaks or nothing but bad leaks. ... My money is on Mary. She is not a liar. That point was proven with the lie detector test. Unlike Aldrich Ames, who passed his test, Mary has a conscience. Unreported contacts with reporters does not prove that she leaked the story on secret prisons in Europe. But if she did, I applaud her effort. There is a fundamental moral and ethical difference between someone who leaks information in order to serve the public good and someone, like George Bush, who authorizes leaks only for the purpose of saving his sorry political ass."

Unclaimed Territory ties McCarthy's denial into a larger indictment of the administration: "If one circumstance could be identified as the most destructive for our country right now, it might be that so many people have purposely ignored this most basic and fundamental principle: just because the Bush administration accuses someone of being guilty of something does not mean that they are actually guilty." TPM Muckraker says no harm no foul: "Here's the kicker: even intelligence officials now admit that the most damaging CIA-related stories have been based on so-called "open source" information. Hard to keep a secret these days. Especially when it ain't secret." LeftCoaster just sees vengeance: "Don't be surprised if McCarthy's firing last week was a political hit by this administration because she was a Kerry supporter and was a holdover from the Clinton Administration."

Balloon-Juice pokes fun at righty conspiracy theories: "McCarthy will likely face more retribution for her actions than simply losing her job. That is fine with me, as far as I am concerned anybody who breaks the law should be ready to go to jail. It is also fine with me if rightwingers want to spin elaborate theories in which every one of their hated enemies will get sucked into a web of conspiracy and go down en masse. Good luck with that guys, I'm sure that those Wilson indictments are just around the corner." No More Mr. Nice Blog practices some conspiracy of his own: "Now, Rove's job changed a bit rather recently -- we're told he's now expected "to focus more on politics ... and big-picture thinking with the approach of the November congressional elections." Well, for Rove, traditionally "politics" in an election year means getting somebody in legal trouble, as Ivins notes. That's "big-picture thinking" for him. So his job changes -- and the next thing you know, a CIA agent who gave money to John Kerry's campaign is threatened with legal action. Coincidence?" Crooks and Liars and Taylor Marsh also chime in.

Finally, the Blogometer loves it when bloggers go toe-to-toe ... it truly is one of the great advantages of the medium. Righty The Real Ugly American took the time to seek out Unclaimed Territory's Glenn Greenwald to produce this exchange:

RUA: "The first obvious question for Mr. Greenwald is, do you acknowledge that what Ms. McCarthy is accused of is in fact illegal? Without commenting specifically on her case do you condemn the leaking of classified information by CIA officers no matter their political preference?"

GG: "What she is accused of may or may not be illegal, because there is an Executive Order in place prohibiting the classifying of information for the purpose of concealing illegal conduct or preventing embarrassment. There is no question - as the administration admits - that creating KGB-like secret torture gulags where prisoners have no legal recourse and are beyond the reach of human rights monitoring groups is the stuff of the most despicable totalitarian regimes. There is no reason to conceal the existence of those camps (even if it's proper to conceal who is detained there or where they are located) other than to prevent political embarrassment to the president and/or conceal conduct which very well may be illegal. Thus, whether it is illegal to have done what she is ACCUSED of doing depends upon the revelation of facts that we do not yet have."

RUA: "Although what he says is technically accurate it avoids the real question. Is leaking of classified information illegal? And the answer is categorically YES. Now If Glenn could find some of these supposed secret prisons and if they did actually operate like KGB run Gulags, and they were actually run by US intelligence officers and military he would have a point. Unfortunately for Mr. Greenwald and Ms. McCarthy he has none of these things."

Bloggers were quick to respond to CNN's breaking news this morning. Reax abound:

Righty thoughts:

• Protein Wisdom: "His health permitting, I hope Snow takes the job; not only is he articulate and likeable, but he is quite comfortable in front of the camera-a change from poor Scott McClellan, who, while I'm sure he is a decent guy, more often than not looked like the last oyster at a party hosted by drunk and hungry walruses."
• Ed Driscoll: "While I think Snow is a great choice myself if he does indeed accept the position, expect endless amount of "Snow Job" headlines from first leftwing bloggers, and eventually the legacy media."
• Stop the ACLU: "I don't think they could have a better choice. Tony is a cool, and collected individual that always gets his facts straight, and has no fear of confrontation."
• RightWinged: "I don't know how I feel about this. I don't doubt Tony's abilities or anything, but I just wonder if he's really the best for the job? I'm sure he'll do a great job and probably stick with the Press Secretary tradition of trying to be respectful of the press corps. But I don't think I want that. I'd like to see a White House Press Secretary say things like "shut up David Gregory you little puke!", but obviously that's not going to happen."
• Decision 08: "I'm not enamored of the choice - it seems to me that it doesn't do anything for the credibility of either Fox News or the White House.

Lefty Takes:

• Crooks and Liars: "As a cancer survivor I wish him well."
• Middle Earth Journal: "The "news" anchors at Faux have been working as front men for the Cheney administration for so long that it probably comes as no surprise that one of them is going to get the chance to make their defacto job into a real one."
• Shakespeares Sister: "That's adorable. Nothing warms the very cockles of my crusty old heart like a mendacious shill finally being able to slough off the restrictive bonds forged in the guise of legitimacy, at long last free of the need to insist while stifling a maniacal laugh that one is not a two-dollar administration whore."

RCP Blog reports that Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) appeared before a "wildly enthusiastic" crowd in Boston Saturday to celebrate the 35th anniversary of his testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. While Kerry's performance did score a "cheer" at DailyKos other lefties weren't so impressed. Brilliant at Breakfast: "I am not interested in what John Kerry has to say I am really sick and tired of Democrats who say all the right things -- when it doesn't matter. I'm not climbing aboard the Al Gore in 2008 bandwagon because I don't trust him to be as passionate about global warming once the consultants and pollsters get hold of him. And I certainly am not interested in what John Kerry has to say about the war in Iraq -- not after he gave an impassioned speech about being careful about going to war -- and then voted for the Iraq War resolution anyway."

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) continued his blog outreach with a 4/22 blogger lunch in Los Angeles. The first item BJ Eskow notes at the Huffington Post: "Stepping outside the usual stereotype of a politician, he picked up the check." Eskow continued, "Feingold argued that reluctance to be baited on national security cost Democrats the Presidency in 2004, and that "most Democrats don't know how to talk straight to the American people about what they believe." "They all listen to the same small group of consultants," Feingold said. "Those consultants would've told me that my career was finished in Wisconsin after I voted against the Patriot Act. And I was re-elected by a wider margin than before." Steveaudio and BradBlog also filed reports.

Lefty bloggers are eagerly highlighting an ABC Newsreport that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is now taking money from Bush donors that spent $2.5M in ads against McCain in CA in 2000. The Carpetbagger Report quips: "I'm trying to imagine how much more McCain could sell out, but I'm at a bit of a loss."

Andrew Sullivan defends McCain...sort of: "I'm no purist. The simple fact is that the GOP is now a religious fundamentalist organization, tethered to a corrupt corporate money machine. If McCain has any chance of winning the nomination, he has to come to terms with these forces. Would we rather Brownback or Allen won them over? On the other hand, of course, it is nauseating to see McCain kowtow to a Christianist like Falwell, a man he rightly once equated with Louis Farrakhan in terms of extremism. What would the American mainstream say if Hillary Clinton went to a Farrakhan rally to shore up her "base"? Yet that is exactly what McCain is now doing. My own acid test will be a simple one. What will McCain actually say at Falwell's university? Will he challenge them on their bigotry? Or will he acquiesce to it?"

4/24 saw cong GOPers try to calm the inevitable summer gas tempest with predictable results. Today, President Bush took his turn at fighting the inevitable with an announced investigation of gas price gouging. No one in the blogosphere is impressed.

Common Sense thinks its much ado about nothing: "He's going to say he won't tolerate price gouging, but he's not really going to do anything. Just like all the other shake ups going on or all the other investigations that have begun under his watch, nothing is really going to happen, it's just that he has to at least look like he's doing something to fix whatever it is that is bothering people this week." The Democratic Daily thinks Bush is the last man for the job: "That's right the addict-in-chief is concerned that his pals the oil barons could be PRICE GOUGING, so he's going to give another phony pep talk tomorrow about how the problem cannot be solved overnight." The Gun Toting Liberal is incensed that the President isn't taking full responsibility: "You have GOT to be KIDDIN' ME!!! It took President Bush and his GOP cronies just six years to oversee the doubling of gas prices, and I'm supposed to believe this was somehow President Clinton's fault?"

Georgia10 at DailyKos doesn't want Dem efforts overlooked: "Notice anything missing? No mention anywhere in the article of the fact that Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer called for an investigation a week ago. Last week, it was Democrats who stood up and demanded a responsible energy policy and energy independence. When Republicans realized that Democrats were not only taking a stand, but that Bush's numbers were taking a hit because of rising gas prices, only then did they make some noise on the issue. Expect to hear a lot about the President's call for an gas price probe tomorrow, when he officially announces it. I'm sure the media will carry his speech live and praise Hastert and Frist for taking "initiative" on the issue.

Not that the President was expecting any defense from righty bloggers on the issue but rest assured, none was forthcoming. Tigerhawk sets the tone: "This is absurd pandering, the demon spawn of Bush's abysmal political position and the American voter's believe that gasoline should be a negligible expense. The oil industry -- at least that part of it downstream from OPEC -- cannot be conspiring to fix prices. It is way too fragmented. A conspiracy like that would require far more people than the usual cabal, probably thousands, and it would be in the interests of any number of the participants to break it."

ThoughtsOnline thinks the issue is an absolute loser for the President: "With polls suggesting that voters favor Democrats over Republicans on the issue (of gasoline prices), and with President Bush getting low marks for handling gas prices, the last thing he ought to do is play on the Democrats home field.... yet that is exactly what he is doing, ordering an investigation into whether oil companies are manipulating oil prices.... Big bad oil companies are a staple for the Democrats. There is no way Bush can get any traction in this area. The public believes he takes orders from the oil companies. No matter what he says or does, they're going to think that."

Chequer-Board sees the gas issue as exhibit A in how the GOP fails at being the party of limited government: "Behold the key impediment against the advent of small government. When government refrains from acting because either (a) intervention would only serve to make the problem worse or (b) because intervention will do nothing to actually solve the problem, the government officials behind the decision to refrain from action will be accused of not caring about the problem at hand. This will cause them to panic at the prospect of being on the wrong side of public opinion, and then engage in fruitless busybody behavior so that they can transmit a "Message: I Care" image to the public at large. In this way, incrementally, government grows ever larger and the case for small government grows ever harder to make." Hit and Run as well as RedState also have takes.

Meanwhile Countertop Chronicles has a solution: "While many of the problems are indeed long term, and should have been addressed by George H.W. Bush or Clinton, the fact remains - as I've said before - that there are a number of short term actions Bush can take right now to significantly reduce the price of gas. ... 1. Open up the Outer Continental Shelf and Lease Sale Area 181 to oil and gas (natural gas) development. ... 2. Waive boutique fuel requirements for this summer. ... 3. Suspend collection of federal fuel taxes - a savings of 18.4 cents a gallon. ...

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: Brad Friedman

Today the Blogometer talks to investigative blogger Brad Friedman, who writes BRADBLOG.

What is your full name?

Brad Friedman

What is your age?

39

Where did you grow up?

St. Louis, MO.

Where do you live now?

Los Angeles, CA

What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?

Apparently, investigative blogger (or is it time I drop the intended deference to trained journalists who are failing so miserably in their jobs and simply call myself an investigative journalist? Yes, I believe it's that time.)

When did you start blogging and why?

I started up The BRAD BLOG in 1/04. With absolutely no intentions -- or even the wildest imaginative ruminations -- that I'd end up doing what I'm doing today. I had just finished producing a very successful weekly stage show in LA which changed every week and required lots of work and writing around the clock. As well, I had been arguing politics with a small email list of family members, only one of whom -- an uncle -- I could rely on to support my arguments, while the rest of my Wingnut family didn't bother to actually support their arguments. When my uncle died, it seemed wise to waste no more time making the case to six people, but rather the world instead. That, after my girlfriend suggested I "start a blog". After figuring out what the hell a blog was, I got underway, though it was mostly pictures of my cat and Doonesebury cartoons. I had no idea it would come to all of this. By the end of '04 my life had turned upside down after accidentally falling into the discovery and reporting of several mind-blowing stories which were eventually were picked up / linked to by the MSM (Washington Post and others). Apparently, whatever it was that I was doing, it was valuable to many, and being done by far too few others.

What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?

It's strange to call it "my favorite" since it's been exhausting and at times terrifying. But it's certainly one of the most notable "BRAD BLOG Exclusives" that I broke early on and continue to report on to this day -- a year and a half later. It's the Clint Curtis story, a man who has alleged that Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) asked him to create vote-rigging software in 2000 when they both worked for the same Florida software firm (Curtis, a programmer, Feeney, the general counsel and register-lobbyist -- even while he was the speaker of the Florida Senate!)

Curtis has given sworn congressional testimony, passed a lie-detector test, and I can't find a hole in his story. Feeney, on the other hand, seems to tell a new whopper every day. The story also includes a dead Florida Inspector General's official and Chinese spies. Very creepy. It's finally turned into more fun and less terror as Curtis has decided to run for Congress this year against Feeney!

Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?

24/7. And then some.

Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?

Gotta be Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com - he sets the standard as far as I'm concerned of what all of us should be doing.

Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?

Bob Koehler of Tribune Media Services

What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?

Does Stephen Colbert count? Does The Daily Show count? Does Real Time with Bill Maher count? If not, does The McClaughlin Group count? I say they all count and each are more interesting and informative than just about all of the other TV "news" fare out there. Wish I had time to watch more of it! (I guess.)

What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?

None are on my "daily schedule". I go where ever the stench leads.

What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?

Daily... RAW STORY Not daily, but frequently...TalkingPointsMemo, AmericaBlog, Crooks & Liars, Huffington Post, Cannonfire

How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?

Perhaps once a week. If I'm "lucky."

How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?

• We (the new media) will keep reporting on and breaking the stories that they (the old media) should, but won't.
• They will keep reading us privately.
• We will keep beating them up publicly.
• They will continue to worry about lost readership.
• We will keep growing.
• They will report more and more of what we've already uncovered for them.
• They will "forget" to give us credit.

Eventually they will either become us...or hire us. I can only hope when that happens that it's because they returned to investigating and reporting on what matters, and that we can stay true to what made our work matter in the first place. And I hope they figure it all out all before they disappear forever. Because we all need them. Now more than ever. If they had been doing their jobs in the first place, many of us (myself included) would likely much rather have be doing something else entirely.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Mr. Sulzberger, Tear Down This Wall!

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine notes that British papers are buying up columnists left and right to win new readers. One New York paper has a different strategy: "Meanwhile, here, The Times hides its columnists behind a wall, which may milk their value today but won't build their value or enable them to create new stars tomorrow.:

LEST WE FORGET: Who Shot John Travolta?

It's still more than a year away but In the Pink Texas is still excited about the upcoming Dallas movie starring John Travolta: "If I close my eyes, I can still hear that opening theme song - you know the one. Da Dah, Da DAH, da Dah da da da da da DAHHH da da da DAAHHHH. Dallas. ...Now Travolta I can handle, despite his scientology freakiness. His turn as Bud in 'Urban Cowboy' is evidence enough. But J. Lo? Now that's just wrong."