Leaks bad, fire lady before she retire!

What an odd story this Mary McCarthy business is. Supossedly, CIA agents on background (Though no one seems to know where this information came from.) say McCarthy got fired for leaking information about the CIA's secret prisons overseas. But now, she says that's not why she got fired.

Jeffery Smith writes in the WaPo that:

"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."

McCarthy's lawyer, Ty Cobb, says that she violated a security agreement she had signed by not disclosing contacts she had with jounalists, including Dana Priest. Hell, if that's what they're upset about they'd better fire half the agency. What's so weird about this, is why they'd bother to fire her when she was just about to retire?

If this is such a big deal then why is she keeping her pention? Smith writes that "a former intelligence official who is friendly with McCarthy" said that "firing someone who was days away from retirement is the least serious action they could have taken. That's certainly enough to frighten those who remain in the agency."

This starts to explain something...frightening others from leaking anymore stuff about what the government is up to. It seems to me that this administraion is becoming more Nixonian by the day. Could there be even worse things they're trying to hide?

It's not like leaking information about secret prisons or renditions is exactly a national security issue, since the victims of those programs already know about it. The only reason W. & Co. are so worked up about these leaks is because it embarrasses them politically.