Blizzard of Criticism

"Oh, ick. Here's David Safavian, the former chief of staff for the General Services Administration, writing to Jack Abramoff in 2000:

" 'Tell me when we can get together. Given how busy you must be, I will clear my decks for a few minutes of your time. After all, you are the most watched lobbyist of the new generation. [I can only hope to follow suit someday ;-) ]'

"That bit of sycophancy comes to you courtesy of the U.S. Attorney's Office, who have just released another stack of the emails between Abramoff and Safavian."

Turning to the mystery of Mary McCarthy's firing, the Wall Street Journal {vbar} editorial page fires a fusillade at the Fourth Estate:

"This would appear to be only the latest example of the unseemly symbiosis between elements of the press corps and a cabal of partisan bureaucrats at the CIA and elsewhere in the "intelligence community" who have been trying to undermine the Bush Presidency . . .

"The case of Ms. McCarthy appears to be as egregious as it gets as a matter of partisan politics. She played a prominent role in the Clinton national security apparatus and public records show she gave $2,000 to John Kerry's Presidential campaign and even more to the Democratic Party. Such is her right. But rather than salute and help implement policy after her candidate lost, she apparently sought to damage the Bush Administration by canoodling with the press . . .

"The press is also inventing a preposterous double standard that is supposed to help us all distinguish between bad leaks (the Plame name) and virtuous leaks (whatever Ms. McCarthy might have done)."

Well, the press is not a monolith, and I've talked to journalists who say a CIA officer who leaks classified information must be prepared to pay the proper penalty, much as reporters like feasting off such leaks.

NYT Editor Bill Keller has some dire words about this and other leak investigations and shares them with National Journal's Murray Waas

" 'I'm not sure journalists fully appreciate the threat confronting us,' Keller wrote. 'The Times in the eavesdropping case, the Post for its CIA prison stories, and everyone else who has tried to look behind the war on terror.' Keller asserted that 'there's sometimes a vindictive tone in the way [administration officials] talk about dragging reporters before grand juries and in the hints that reporters who look too hard into the public's business risk being branded traitors.' He warned that journalists possibly are 'suffering a bit of subpoena fatigue. Maybe some people are a little intimidated by the way the White House plays the soft-on-terror card. Whatever the reason, I worry that we're not as worried as we should be.' "

That's about as far from the Wall Street Journal position as you can get.