The McCarthy CIA Leaks
Stromata has a new possible angle on Mary McCarthy, the CIA employee fired for leaking (that is, releasing classified information to the press). This possibility might also explain why she is not being prosecuted and sent to jail: maybe she was not leaking truthful information.
If guys at WaPo don’t read National Review, they might have dug up the possibility – it was reported in the New York Times – that all or part of what Mrs. McCarthy peddled was false, which might shed a different light on the “accountability” rationale. Investigations by the European Union have yet to turn up any sign of the “secret prisons”.
If what she was leaking was unreliable CIA reports, then she is still leaking classified information. And she is in a very convenient position for enemies of the Administration such as herself and the mainstream media, because she can provide cover for all kinds of vicious lies in the newspapers. If she can find a CIA report with some allegation in it– no matter how unreliable a report– she can tell the newspaper about it anonymously, as “a national security source” or “a high government source” or “a well-placed expert”. The CIA gets all kinds of crazy reports from the paranoid Third World– as it ought to. Thus, if the newspapers want to, surely they can get a leak saying that American soldiers in Iraq are drinking the blood of Arab babies as part of Zionist rituals.
But what if there was not even a report? This has two advantages. First, her freedom to choose stories is unlimited, since she makes them up herself. Second, she is not releasing classified information. She can, perhaps (since she is a civil service employee) still be fired, but not prosecuted.