Abu Wabu

Fast on the heels of Stephen Hayes' Weekly Standard article exposing details of the McCarthy-CIA-Clintonista cabal comes Thomas Joscelyn's article of the same name, The New McCarthyism.

While Hayes examines the media's omissions in their depiction of a harmless, non-partisan McCarthy, Joscelyn sets his sights on the truth behind the leaker's so-called "independent streak" and the intelligence surrounding the al-Shifa plant. It will be no surprise to adults that Clinton-era intelligence found ample co-operation between al Qaeda and Iraq.

THE MEDIA has been quick to lionize Mary McCarthy, the recently fired 61-year-old CIA analyst who allegedly leaked classified information to the Washington Post's Dana Priest. According to several recent accounts, it is not clear what information McCarthy was accused of leaking. But on Sunday, the New York Times ran a tribute to McCarthy. In it we learn from a gaggle of former intelligence officials that McCarthy is a woman of "great integrity," and "quite a good, substantive person." Larry Johnson, the former CIA analyst who told us not to worry about the threat of terrorism two years before 9/11, even tells us that she is a "sacrificial lamb."

Adulation from fellow colleagues aside, the lynchpin of the Times piece is that McCarthy has an "independent streak." She is no partisan, the Times wants you to know, and she has questioned the use of intelligence by both Democratic and Republican administrations. To demonstrate this independence, the Times piece leads with the claim that McCarthy bucked the Clinton administration in August 1998 when she objected to the destruction of a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant suspected of doubling as a front for al Qaeda's WMD efforts. The plant, named Al-Shifa, was one of two retaliatory targets chosen by the Clinton administration in the aftermath of the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

But in recounting the story of al-Shifa and Mary McCarthy's role in evaluating the intelligence surrounding the facility, the Times leaves out nearly every salient fact--including evidence that the Clinton administration used to tie Saddam's Iraq to al Qaeda.

And including the fact that McCarthy, whom the Times correctly but narrowly described as uncertain about striking the al-Shifa plant, soon joined in her colleagues' assessment and that "every top Clinton administration official who was involved in the decision to strike al -Shifa stands by that decision today."

Joscelyn's conclusions should surprise no-one with a brain. Read it all.

Power Line's Scott Johnson had this to say about the anti-Bush insurrection now being exposed by the McCarthy revelations:

The only war the Democrats really have their heart in is the war to undermine the Bush administration. Any incidental damage done to the national interest in furtherance of that war appears in their eyes to be for the greater good.

The same gang that claims to deplore collateral damage when it comes to fighting the enemy out there is wholly unconcerned about the damage they are doing right at home in executing their war against President Bush. They care nothing for the fact that in pursuing the man, they are doing great harm to the Office and to the nation.

It's just one more way the left is destroying your freedoms for your own good.