Ignoring the Obvious Regarding the CIA Leaker

Andy McCarthy at The Corner points out some significant information that was left out of the Washington Post article on the CIA leaker Mary McCarthy (no relation):

OK. Let's leave aside that people with access to classified information take an oath not to disclose it and that there are internal procedures available for reporting concerns about government abuse -- no one has to go to the media.

There is no mention by the Post -- none -- that Mary McCarthy is a big Kerry campaign and Democratic Party contributor.

How can the WPost justify reporting one friend's mere impression that McCarthy is not biased and that it is very difficult even for those who know her well to understand why she would leak sensitive information, and yet not report the objective fact that -- after a meteoric professional rise in intelligence circles during a Democratic administration -- McCarthy, while a government official on a government salary, gave at least $7700 of her own money in a single year to Democratic political campaigns?

Given the Post's delicate posture in this case -- having been the recipient of at least one highly sensitive leak on a subject about which it chose to publish a story damaging to national security -- you would think they might perceive a special obligation to play it down the middle here. But apparently not.

This morning's story is said to have had no fewer than eight contributors -- it was written by R. Jeffrey Smith and Dafna Linzer, and lists as contributors Walter Pincus, Al Kamen, Howard Kurtz and Dan Morse, and research editor Lucy Shackelford and researcher Magda Jean-Louis.

Since campaign contribution information is available on-line -- you don't even need to draft star reporters and research editors to dig it out -- is it too much to suppose that at least one of these eight folks might have mentioned, at least in passing, that this purported non-ideologue of a leaker was giving lots of money to the effort to unseat the present administration?

If leaker McCarthy had been a big GOP contributor, that fact would have been part of the story's headline, since we all know how the press loves to magnify the efforts of GOP or administration officials who turn against Bush. This is either really sloppy reporting, or really strong bias.