The Priest and the penitent
Flopping Aces has the best compendium of Mary McCarthy information that we’ve seen so far. What a gasbag she is, if her testimony before the 9-11 Commission is any indication. No wonder she couldn’t stop running her mouth to the awful Dana Priest. We don’t have too much to add. It’s amazing what is public about spies: her address and a map, her $5000 party donation, and her husband’s Kerry donation. Google Earth’s image of their Bethesda house is cloudy; do you think they’ll have to sell their vacation home in North Carolina to pay for legal expenses? We wonder what level of interest the MSM will show in the McCarthys compared to the Wilsons. On second thought, we really don’t wonder at all.
UPDATE
Powerline reminds us of at least two things the MSM won’t want to talk about: al-Shifa and McCarthy’s close association with Mr. Docs in his Socks.
UPDATE II
The MSM probably won’t want to talk about the unlikely but possible situation of Dana Priest’s Pulitzer-winning story being false either.
UPDATE III
Let the hagiography begin, via NYT:
As a senior National Security Council aide for intelligence from 1996 to 2001, she was responsible for guarding some of the nations most sensitive secrets. “We’re talking about a person with great integrity who played by the book and, as far as I know, never deviated from the rules,” said Steven Simon, a National Security Council aide in the Clinton administration who worked closely with Ms. McCarthy.
Others said it was possible that Ms. McCarthy, who began attending law school at night several years ago, made a campaign contribution to Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004 and had announced her intention to retire from C.I.A., had grown increasingly disenchanted with the often harsh and extra-legal methods adopted by the Bush administration for handling Al Qaeda prisoners and felt she had no alternative except to go to the press.
If in fact Ms. McCarthy was the leaker, Richard J. Kerr, a former C.I.A. deputy director, said, “I have no idea what her motive was, but there is a lot of dissension within the agency and it seems to be a rather unhappy place.” Mr. Kerr called Ms. McCarthy “quite a good, substantive person on the issues I dealt with her on.” She was known as a low-key during her time at the white house as professional who paid special attention to preventing leaks of classified information and covert operations, several current and former government officials said.
UPDATE IV
We note all kinds of creepy connections in the Wilson / McCarthy orbit, including Dana Priest’s husband and some awful people who pay his salary.