Clean-Up And Leak-Plugging At CIA

The blurb at The Pulitzer Prize Web site proclaims the winner of the Beat Reporting category of the Pulitzer:

Awarded to Dana Priest of The Washington Post for her persistent, painstaking reports on secret "black site" prisons and other controversial features of the government's counterterrorism campaign.

One of those sources persistently providing Priest with information apparently was Mary McCarthy:

In a highly unusual move, the CIA has fired an employee for leaking classified information to the news media, including details about secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe that resulted in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story, officials said Friday

The Associated Press has learned the officer was a CIA veteran nearing retirement, Mary McCarthy. Reached Friday evening at home, her husband would not confirm her firing.

In McCarthy's final position at the CIA, she was assigned to its Office of Inspector General, looking into allegations the CIA was involved in torture at Iraqi prisons, according to a former colleague who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is under investigation.

Fire 'em all, and then prosecute them to the max! If a CIA employee's talking to the media, they shouldn't be CIA agents. If they've got a problem, go through the process; if the process doesn't work, then that's it.

Of course, the press doesn't see it that way:

Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said on the newspaper's Web site, "We don't know the details of why (the CIA employee) was fired, so I can't comment on that. But as a general principle, obviously I am opposed to criminalizing the dissemination of government information to the press."

Nor does the Left, this from Vichy Democrats, is typical:

Let's pause for a moment and give thanks that, even in Bush's America, there are a few heroes left.

He's speaking of course of McCarthy, the rat, the leaking rat. Because of her, we are less capable of dealing with some of the most dispicable people on the planet, people who pose a very real threat to our country. That doesn't make her a patriot.

And there are more like her -- at the CIA, at State and the Pentagon. Fire 'em, prosecute 'em, put 'em away.

Tags: Mary McCarthy, CIA, Washington Post, Dana Priest, Leaks