April 25, 2006

The Silence of the Saint

Hatched by Dafydd

The silence of St. Mary of Langley continues; since Mary O. McCarthy was fired on Friday, April 21st, 2006, four days have passed in which she has refused to come forward herself and flatly state that she did not leak any classified intelligence.

She has her shills: Rand Beers yesterday, issued a carefully composed "non-denial" denial; today, Mr. Senior Intelligence Official (he sure gets around!) and Thomas S. Blanton fill that role. And she has her mouthpiece:

A lawyer representing fired CIA officer Mary O. McCarthy said yesterday that his client did not leak any classified information and did not disclose to Washington Post reporter Dana Priest the existence of secret CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe for suspected terrorists.

The statement by Ty Cobb, a lawyer in the Washington office of Hogan & Hartson who said he was speaking for McCarthy, came on the same day that a senior intelligence official said the agency is not asserting that McCarthy was a key source of Priest's award-winning articles last year disclosing the agency's secret prisons.

But look at what the attorney did not say, or at least is not quoted as having said: he did not say "Mary McCarthy told me that she had not leaked any classified information;" he simply asserts that she didn't. And he said she didn't "disclose" the supposed existence of the prisons; but did she confirm it?

Why is this important? Because Mary O. McCarthy is a Clintonista. She was very close to the former president; he personally picked her to be his special assistant for intelligence. And what were the Clintons, both of 'em, know for most?

They were infamous for careful slicing and dicing the language to imply a lie without actually saying the lie.

  • "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Mr. Clinton claimed he didn't consider certain activities to be "sex," and he cited the Bible as authority;
  • "I was never alone with Miss Lewinsky." He's right: there were always plenty of other people in the White House at the time... just in other rooms;
  • "It depends what the meaning of 'is' is." No comment.

They were also known for constantly sending people out to lie for them... but it wasn't really a lie, because the sock-puppet defenders (say, just like Michael Hiltzik's ficticious commenters!) could always say they were just expressing their "faith" in the Clintons' innocence.

And that's what the peculiarly named Ty Cobb can say. Even if she did, in fact, leak tons of classified intelligence, all Mr. C. has to say is, "she never said that to me -- I just looked at her face, and she looked so innocent, I knew she couldn't have done it." That may be bad judgment, but bad judgment is certainly not a disbarrable offense (while flatly lying might be).

What about the other shills? They fall into two categories:

The Ubiquitous Anonymous Supporter:

Though McCarthy acknowledged having contact with reporters, a senior intelligence official confirmed yesterday that she is not believed to have played a central role in The Post's reporting on the secret prisons. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing personnel matters.

Well! Who can argue with that? A person who must speak on the condition of anonymity because of personnel matters (as in, "I would be fired if they found out"), but who the Washington Post assures us is senior, says that she didn't play a central role -- how can we doubt her for even a minute?

Is Mr. Senior I. Official actually involved in the investigation? The Post doesn't say. Is he/she speaking for the investigation, or just offering a personal opinion? No comment. Is he or she a partisan of one side or the other? The WaPo shrugs.

It makes no difference. They've planted the meme; it will grow in fertile soil.

The External Expert Who Never Met the Saint (but can tell she's innocent):

Thomas S. Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, a nongovernmental research institute at George Washington University, said he does not think the Post article includes the kind of operational details that a prosecutor would need to build a case.

"It's the fact of the thing that they're trying to keep secret, not to protect sources and methods, but to hide something controversial," he said. "That seems like a hard prosecution to me."

Kate Martin, executive director of the Center for National Security Studies, said that "even if the espionage statutes were read to apply to leaks of information, we would say the First Amendment prohibits criminalizing leaks of information which reveal wrongful or illegal activities by the government."

Translation: it's all just political, she didn't damage anything, and besides, all the programs she damaged were illegal anyway.

How does Blanton know whether revealing the information (if it's accurate) does or does not compromise "sources?" It certainly reveals methods -- imprisoning people in a jail in Eastern Europe is a method, and presumably it would be easier to break people out of a prison if you knew approximately where they were being held.

And what makes Ms. Martin say that these secret prisons (which may or may not exist) are "illegal?" Has she studied the program? Is she cleared for that information? Can she cite caselaw on the subject?

Is she even a lawyer?

And what the heck does it mean to say that "the First Amendment prohibits criminalizing leaks of information which reveal wrongful... activities?" Does that mean that anytime a CIA agent thinks a CIA operation is "wrongful," he has carte blanche to leak it to the press? Maybe Kate Martin should change the name of her group to the Center for International Insecurity Studies.

And in all of this, McCarthy has yet to make even a pro-forma appearance to personally deny her own guilt. She doesn't even have to take questions; she can simply read a statement. She could just stand up, look the public in its lidless eye, and say "I categorically deny that I ever leaked any classified information to any reporter, anytime, anywhere. I am completely innocent, and I will be exonerated by this investigation." If she really is innocent, then how could it possibly hurt her case to emphatically and personally enunciate her innocence?

She could; but she hasn't. The silence of the saint continues.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 25, 2006, at the time of 3:02 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: Martin Hague

She hasn't said anything because she's guilty. Innocent people tend not to fail multiple polygraphs. I hope she gets prosecuted for treason, personally, but I won't hold my breath. The DoJ is as full of liberals as every other Government Agency.

It's where they hang out.

The above hissed in response by: Martin Hague [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2006 4:45 PM

The following hissed in response by: bpilch

I think she is hoping that the govt. will not want to show the classified information that she leaked and thus will not prosecute. One possibility is the canary trap, where they would argue that you can't classify things that aren't real... I believe that is the path they are headed for...

The above hissed in response by: bpilch [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2006 5:59 PM

The following hissed in response by: bpilch

btw, how can you argue that the programs that she leaked were illegal and she didn't leak any information at the same time? Obviously, it is different people arguing those cases, but it certainly means that even her defenders believed she leaked classified information.

The above hissed in response by: bpilch [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2006 6:03 PM

The following hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist

Some say that such "Silence" is clearly a sign of guilt...so to speak.

National Security *SECRETS* are clearly involved, so this supporter of Terrorists, Ms. or St. Mary, gets some slack, and her lawyer knows it.

Libby may have lied about a *NON*-Crime, and look at how the Liberal/Socialist Buzzards wait for his carcass to...to...to be eatable.

Joe Wilson and Richard Clarke are allowed to lie, Sandy "Burgler" Berger can get away with...with Treason and Theft, at best, and half of America wants Libby's "head".

Is this a case of giving out *LOTS* of Rope, in order to see a scoundrels neck snapped whilst also hearing the sound of such???

i hope so...for my eyes of flesh have told my ears of flesh to be prepared for a pleasurable sound. An orgasmic sound...so to speak of such a 'Thang.

The above hissed in response by: KarmiCommunist [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2006 6:46 PM

The following hissed in response by: yonason

Ahhh, the old 'Implausable Un-denial' ploy. Well, given what she has going for her, it would seem that silence is probably her best option at this point. Too bad for her that she couldn't pull that shtick when they gave her the polygraph.
* * * * *
Polygraph Administrator-"Mary, did you violate your security oath?"
....
"I'm sorry, Mary, I didn't hear you."
...
"Wipe that %&#*ed smile off your face and answer the @%#%ed question!!!"
* * * * *

Hopefully the court of public opinion is beginning to get wise to the leftist subversives' disinformation tactics, and will begin to remand them real courts where real justice can be meted out.

Have you seen what RiehlWorldView has to say about little O'Mary O'McCarthy's O'Antics?

...where we read such observations as...

"If one looks into the back story a bit, what begins to emerge is a growing picture of mostly life long Democrats committed to a non-aggressive, diplomacy-only solution to global threats."

How sweet. She did what she didn't (or is that 'didn't what she did'?) in order to advance the exclusively Democratic cause of World peace by helping the raging psychopath enemy cause more damage with less fear of being stopped.

[ Heh heh heh. I just thought of how appropriate it would be to lock her up in GITMO, or maybe Abu Ghraib or in a dank dark basement in some undisclosed country that not even her analyst pals know about. Now THAT would be REAL justice! ]

The above hissed in response by: yonason [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2006 9:45 PM

The following hissed in response by: bpilch

With St Mary saying now that she didn't leak classified docs, but admits to speaking with the Priest (Dana), doesn't it follow that the Priest will naturally be subpoenaed to ask what she did disclose? Looks like the Priest is going to have some jail time, as no self respecting journalist can be allowed by the MSM to roll on one of their own... Lucky for her it will be minimum security, because she's kinda cute...

The above hissed in response by: bpilch [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 26, 2006 2:52 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Bpilch:

With St Mary saying now that she didn't leak classified docs....

So far as I know, Mary O. McCarthy hasn't said anything!

Has she given any interviews to anybody since Friday, or even stepped out on her front porch and declared her innocence for the cameras?

Mary-Watch, Day 5

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 26, 2006 5:28 PM

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