Mary McCarthy's Betrayal

The RCP Blog has a must-read concise summary of the distinction between her damaging leak and the administration declassifying information to set the record straight. McCarthy had other avenues to reponsibly air her concerns, including Congress:

If an intelligence official is concerned about conduct they consider to be inappropriate/illegal, measures exist to make competent authority aware of the situation. An agency's Inspector General is a good option. Failing that avenue, an intelligence official can always turn to appropriately cleared congressional oversight committees such as the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence or the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Resigning in protest is also an option; running to the press isn't.

Gee, why didn't she just leak it to Sen. Durbin? I suppose she didn't want to get him into any more trouble.

UPDATE: There is clarification from the CIA that she was not a key figure in the leak on the secret prison story, but they do say this. Washington Post:

In a statement last Friday, the agency said it had fired one of its officers for having unauthorized conversations with journalists in which the person "knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence." Intelligence officials subsequently acknowledged that the official was McCarthy and said that Priest is among the journalists with whom she acknowledged sharing information.Priest won the Pulitzer Prize this month for a series of articles she wrote last year about the intelligence community, including the revelation of the existence of CIA-run prisons in East European countries.

McCarthy's lawyer claims she did not leak classified information. Other fascinating conjectures here.

The New York Times and the Washington Post believe they are protecting the world from the evil Bush administration by gathering their own intelligence. Guess they forgot where that hole in NY and that hit on the Pentagon came from. We'll know who to call on to protect us if it happens again. The MSM--"Fighting for You"! Not.