I appreciate the time CBS Public Eye editor Vaughn Ververs and correspondent Tracy Smith put into their response to an item I posted Friday, but I’m less than convinced by their arguments. Smith writes that she and her producer were aware of Dr. Cate Jenkins’s credibility problems and adversarial relationship with the EPA when they put her on the air and let her accuse the EPA of deliberately lying about the air quality at Ground Zero. But they defend their decision not to disclose these details about her past by citing one instance in which Jenkins’s credibility was apparently vindicated. Smith also cites two other news stories which quoted Jenkins as a source, although both disclosed her frequent conflicts with the agency. In addition, Smith argues that she gave the EPA a fair opportunity to answer to Jenkins’s accusations and aired the EPA’s rebuttal.

At this point, I’m not as concerned with disclosure as with CBS’s judgment for putting Cate Jenkins on the air in the first place. Ververs writes, “…Jenkins’ opinion was presented as that – an opinion by an EPA scientist who did not work directly on [the Ground Zero air quality] issue.” If Jenkins did not work directly on the Ground Zero air quality issue, what standing does she have to accuse the EPA of falsifying its research? It is because, we are told, she is an “EPA scientist” who knows about these things even if she did not directly participate.

But Cate Jenkins is more than just an “EPA scientist,” isn’t she? She’s an EPA scientist who has clashed frequently with her superiors, sued the agency at least twice and prompted an administrative law judge to write one of the most damning indictments of a witness’s credibility I’ve ever read:

She is an intense woman who believes that any means are acceptable if, in her view, the ends are desirable, including lying (even under oath), searching through co-workers’ personal effects, and leaking confidential information.

That she prevailed in a separate, subsequent lawsuit doesn’t mitigate the pattern of behavior this judge described and into which this latest episode so clearly fits.

Cate Jenkins didn’t work on the Ground Zero issue at EPA, nor is her credibility as a scientist… let’s just say it’s short of unimpeachable. Giving her a prominent stage from which to make the deadly serious accusation that the EPA intentionally lied to Ground Zero rescue workers about the safety of the air they were breathing — especially when she doesn’t appear to have any evidence to back it up – just strikes me as extremely irresponsible.

UPDATE: Vaughn Ververs responds to this post with a clarification, writing that he did not intend to vouch for Jenkins’s credibility but merely to point out that she is still employed as a scientist by the EPA. I would say this speaks more to the impossibility of firing federal employees than anything else. But Ververs is absolutely right that this debate overlooks the bigger issue of why so many Ground Zero rescuers are getting sick. I agree that journalists need to be asking tough questions. But entertaining baseless accusations from strange characters is more of a distraction than a search for answers.