Meet The New McCarthyism, Same As The Old McCarthyism

Now this is getting re-goddamned-diculous:

: Reader Topsecretk9 has links to many of the Plame players to McCarthy through [Center For Security and International Studies, where a lot of these very liberal CIA hacks worked for periods, often together). ...

This comment in particular is interesting:

I do think it is interesting that Daniel Benjamin is “quoted� as a friend of [Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald] in the WAPO love letter bio story and then viola — he was on the NSC with Wilson And McCArthy, and well a member of CSIS with Mcarthy and on the NYU Security [symposium/debate] with McCarthy AND DANA PRIEST (and Hersh).

Okay, let's not lose plot. A lot of people know a lot of other people in government, and in DC, and especially in the same area of government.

But still... interesting.

And: A few weeks ago the Washington Post unexpectedly came down against Joe Wilson, and in defense of the President, in calling the President's leaking of information about Iraq's nuke program a good leak.

I believe it was Just One Minute who first questioned the WaPo's motives for this welcome, but very surprising, stance.

Did the WaPo take this strange position because they knew in a few weeks they'd have to defend another leak, and didn't want to be seen as blatantly inconsistent on leaks?

Perhaps. If so, at least give the WaPo credit for attempting consistency. That doesn't seem to bother the "Paper of Record," the NYT, which has no problems at all demanding that Lewis Libby be thrown in jail for his fake ticky-tack leak but Mary McCarthy be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her REAL leak.

Oh, I know, the NYT's editorial page hasn't actually declared that yet. But what do you think tomorrow's lead editorial will be?

After a lot of throat-clearning crap like "Of course our nation's secrecy laws must be respected" will come the cowardly, dishonest liberal's favorite conjunction -- but -- and a demand that McCarthy be spared further investigation because she acted, doncha know, in the country's best interests.

Jeff Goldstein, meanwhile, thinks I've implied the press will "bury" this story, and he thinks it's too big to bury.

Well, I don't think they'll bury it outright; it is too big for an outright embargo. And of course they're all reporting on it... somewhat, even though the crack investigative staff at the NYT has a lot of trouble tracking down the full amount that Ms. McCarthy has donated to Democrats over the years.

I believe they will minimize the importance of the story and maximize the mitigating factors; I think Jeff agrees with that. Just like they did during Monicagate-- you can't exactly ignore the story, but you sure can defend Clinton by attacking the people prosecuting him, and noting that lying is in fact a very common and very human action (indeed-- it is our lies that make us uniquely human!), and run stories about Jefferson banging the help, and all that.

So, an anti-war official leaked anti-war type stuff. Isn't it true, they'll say, that pro-war officials have leaked pro-war stuff? Isn't it no different than the President legally declassifying information? Really, why should Bush be allowed to decide what the public will know, and a really super-smart and super-ethical CIA officer not be so permitted?

I think they will go full-out to rescue Wilson, Plame, and McCarthy; Jeff seems to believe they may not dare go as far as they could.

In fact-- he thinks they might actually PURSUE the story as if they were ACTUAL REPORTERS, rather than unofficial DNC communications staffers:

And if this story breaks like I’m starting to sense it will (for instance, McCarthy was Larry Johnson’s boss, and the connections between familiar players favored by the anti-war left are starting to pile up1), the press calculus could play out in such a way that they see tough coverage of this scandal—an ACTUAL SCANDAL this time, mind you—as a way to rehabilitate themselves with the American public. That is, they could recognize that now is the best time to bury their ideological allegiances and attempt to show their bona fides as “objective� and “neutral� agents of information dissemination—knowing full well that if they do not, they will get swept away by the flood.

Sadly, Jeff had to type the rest of this interesting post with his nose, as he had badly burned his fingertips on his crack-pipe and smack-spoon.

Vengeance For Jeff "The Once And Future King" Gannon: JPod at National Review's The Corner suggests that "getting McCarthy" is a bigger story than the left taking down Jeff Gannon.

Absurd. Let us not let our partisanship blind us. Losing a male escort/stringer for Men's News Daily was a crippling blow for the entire conservative movement, whereas the present case is merely about a high-ranking Clinton-appointed CIA officer committing actions that border on treason.

So yes, it's all well and good that we've outed a major security risk at the CIA, but let's not sit here and pretend that this will bring Jeff Gannon back to us.

Nothing will.

And it's about time that some of us came to terms with that.

posted by Ace at 03:56 PM

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