Sen. Shelby, Life's Ironist

According to Drudge, Thursday's WaPo will finger [has fingered] Sen. Shelby (R, Alabama), former Chairman of the Senate Select Committe on Intelligence, as the culprit following a two-year probe into a leak of classified information involving the 9/11 attacks. This is not a bolt from the blue - last January, he was tapped as a "the focus of the leak".

Well. We hereby exhort all Chairman to take national security seriously, especially if they chair intelligence committees. But Sen. Shelby's situation is especially amusing (in a ghastly way, of course).

Back in 2000, the Once-Secretive Senator championed the Shelby Amendment, which would "for the first time explicitly would make disclosing classified information to the media a felony punishable by up to three years in prison. This idea was eventually shelved, he will be relieved to recall.

The Senator's website tells us that he "has been critical of the CIA and other branches of the intelligence community, citing the need for stronger accountability standards."

Accountability, indeed.

It will be interesting to see how the Senate Ethics Committee handles this; back when the leak investigation was launched there was grumbling that the Executive Branch was trying to intimidate the Congressional overseers. It does appear that Separation of Powers plus Public's Right to Know trumped Letter of the Law.

MORE: Ahh, here we go - Perhaps a Grand Menage a Quatre involving Berger, Shelby, and the Plame leakers will be announced just after the balloon drop in New York City. Three Reps for one Dem...

A bit of a Drudge-watch - he headlines the leak to Fox News, but Fox did not run it; Shelby then talked to CNN, which did.

And the WaPo mentions the Plame investigation, so I am not alone in my obsessing.

UPDATE: Nick Confessore of TAPPED can't figure out why the media is not crucifying Shelby for leaking to the media; after all, they crucifed Berger for behavior which was quite different and self-serving.

I assume that Nick C. can see quite clearly that the media knows which of these two behaviors butters their bread, so rather than conclude that Nick is one of the dimmer bulbs on the tree, I'll pencil him in as a disingenuous rabble-rouser. It may be amusing to see how many other lefties adopt this phony spin. (OK, it may also be fun to watch the grass grow and the sun set - all these activities have a certain calming predictability to them).

UPDATE 2: Excellent job by Tacitus, who digs up an Oct 2001 NY Times editorial decrying Bush's bid for secrecy and Congressional restraint.

Comments

[Brennan Stout]

I don't know how important this is in relation to Shelby's affair, but he was one of a few Senators that wants the blacked out text of the initial 9/11 report that allegedly fingered the Saudis for much of the blame to be released. The White House holds the key though.

This does appear political. Shelby is no longer on the intelligence committees which may be why the Executive branch is no longer pursuing a criminal investigation.

[Slartibartfast]

You know, in serious matters such as this, the party affiliation of the alleged perp has no concern at all for me.

[Laddy]

I don't care to which party they belong. When you do bad you get punished. I'm not sure the Plame leaker(s) did anything wrong, but Shelby and Berger should both be punished. IMHO Berger should go to jail for at least a year if he did any of the things reported just to make an example of him for others.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Shelby's ex-CIA, too. Which is just another demonstration that CIA background may not imply intelligence.

[HH]

WaPo gets in the jab at Fox and "forgets" (like Valerie) about CNN.

[HH]

"... he was one of a few Senators that wants the blacked out text of the initial 9/11 report that allegedly fingered the Saudis for much of the blame to be released."

I wonder about that now... if the Sep. 11 commission finds that the Saudis were not involved in the attacks (and that they do), how can an "initial" report finger them? Or was it dead wrong, and therefore it was blacked out for lack of embarrassment later?

[Buddy Larsen]

I don't think the justice system can handle this particular sort of malfeasance, where on the one hand it is just chicanery buit on the other rots the nation's image at a bad time, when the games gets people killed. Mr. Wilson spoke to the Boston Tee'd party, to an auditorium of people
who knew full well what his game is. Yet by some sort of unspoken tribal signal, all agreed that, yes, once again, as always, the victim is the perp,. and the perp is the victim. In this case the proximate victim is GWB, not only the target of the original conspiracy, but now that the conspiracy is exposed, is being recast as the author of a set-up to fake the exposure that wouldn't have happened unless somehow GWB crazily wanted his first crime--the yellowcake lie--to be exposed in order to set-up poor old Joe Wilson. So, we are to believe that GWB faked the documents, and then also, apparently just for fun, exposed his own lies so that he could then
deny them, by blaming the whistleblower that he
had set-up to blow the whistle on the trick he
needed to pull off in order not to lose the election over a conspiracy to wage a war based on nothing but the lie that that he had set-up to be exposed, so that he could deny it, so he could blame someone else, so that the original lie could be restored to where it would've already been anyway, if Bush hadn't set up the covering conspiracy to fake a discovery in order to fake a denial in order to fake...oh, man, am I the only one getting dizzy? Guess I'll go back to wondering why Janet Reno covered for Win Ho Lee for three years until the Chinese had all they needed for the new ICBM submarines that is are due to float sometime soon, about ten years ahead of when they would've, without help from the Clinton/Reno/Berger/Riady/PRChina (but not Gore, who couldn't have been the bag man because he couldn't hold his iced tea). Yep, in any credibility dispute between GWB and Mr. Wilson's backers (I mean his backers behind us taxpayers who pay this gang's expenses so they can more easily sell us down the river), I believe Mr. Wilson. Because I'm the stupidest s.o.b. who ever took a dump between brogans.

[Brennan Stout]

"Shelby's ex-CIA, too."

Never heard this before. When was Shelby in the CIA?

[TM]

His bio doesn't mention it either - maybe he is still covert?

Porter Goss, the House Chairman, is ex-CIA.

[Slartibartfast]

Either Buddy's comments make no sense at all, or someone lobotomized me while I wasn't looking.

[Forbes]

Slart--Take a couple of hits of that fine reefer he's smoking, 'cause ya gota get into the rhythm of the thing, before ya get it. 'stand me, bro.

[Brian]

I'm not sure why you think NC is so wrong and stupid. Perhaps instead of insulting him and running away, you could explain your comments.

I, for one, would like to know why the fact that the integrity of the 9/11 report was't compromised by Berger's actions isn't being reported in the press more heavily. The Wall Street Journal ran with it; how come everyone else sat on their hands?