Jeff Goldstein about catches the appropriate mood, with this:
Anyway, let’s count the boons to the “public good” here, shall we: 1) reporting on the classified information leaked them, the Times’ editors were told, would jeopardize three ongoing investigations; 2) the program and its searches were clearly legal, a fact made clear to the editors, who were shown evidence to that effect; 3) administration officials and others made it clear to the editors that printing the leaked classified information would jeopardize not only the ongoing investigations, but would irreparably damage a program that had been demonstrably effective; 4) despite all this, the Times’ went with the story—an editorial decision that in fact jeopardized three investigations, “outed” a legal classified program, and rendered an effective program for thwarting terrorist planning and rolling up cells impotent. In addition, they created problems for our allies, who will likely be far more circumspect about helping the US with any future programs for fear of being exposed by leakers with ties to the intelligence community.And then they had the temerity to spill ink over their struggles with conscience—concluding, ultimately (and boy, here’s a shocker) that they owed it to the public to render useless the legal program that had actually been protecting them.
Which, while that certainly takes balls like casaba melons, is nevertheless still self-serving and repugnant rubbish that anyone with a bit of sense would dismiss as such.
There's apparently an investigation underway to find the leaker, and the American Spectator feels it's unlikely to be a current intelligence professional. Rather it's some former official with a grudge or score to settle, or perhaps an aspiration to fulfill. The whole episode has the smarm signature of someone like Richard Clarke. And strangely I have this irresistible urge to say "the late Richard Clarke", not because I think he's exactly dead, per se, or because I wish him so. But he seems to have transformed himself into some sort of wraith-like approximation of the human he used to be, once upon a time. Not someone one thinks of walking around in the sunlight.
Leaving that speculation aside, whoever the culprit is he/she/it must be someone whose ethical gears have been stripped, and is just grinding out what's left of its store of integrity into a greasy little pile in some darkened corner.
Posted by Demosophist at July 5, 2006 06:07 PM