Smart letter from MB reader Jeanne B.:

One almost has to laugh at the hypocrisy in the Post’s top headlines today. Blaring at the top is their latest leaked revelation: Oil company officials told Congress their companies didn’t meet with Cheney’s energy task force! But now someone has leaked a memo showing company reps did participate. Oh, the horror!
And then right below it is the “scoop” that Bob Woodward withheld information that he may have been the first reporter to hear about “Wilson’s wife” from an administration official. And he told Pincus that she was a CIA analyst (though Pincus says he forgot — oh yeah.) But Woodward didn’t tell the Post or the prosecutor what he knew. Let’s not forget that the entire Wilson brouhaha is about someone leaking Plame’s identity in response to Joe Wilson’s lies.
So, we have two cases of leaking. In the first article, the leaker is obviously a HERO because he/she is disclosing the dastardly lies by BIG OIL. But in the Wilson affair, the leaker has been treated as a villain — “out to destroy” Wilson — even though it now appears releasing her identity was not a crime. As for lying, the media sure never showed such concern about “lying” when it was Wilson spreading falsehoods (though the Post has been more careful in its editorials than other MSM outlets). Wilson’s prevarications not only haven’t gotten prominent coverage, his lies are often repeated as fact in articles about the investigation.
Lastly, let’s watch how the MSM treats Woodward as opposed to Judy Miller. Will he be vilified for “protecting an administration official”? Doubtful.
The Post’s front page today gives us a perfect example of how the media adopts story lines and uses them to tarnish those they’ve assumed are the “bad guys”. Big Oil and Cheney are bad. Wilson is good, a whistleblower. Reporters are victims of an overly secretive administration. Everyone “knows” these things. And there it is — side by side — on the Post’s front page. But they can’t see it. Pitiful.

The fact that the entire campaign against the White House is based on a leak, which under normal circumstances reporters love, is just one of the ironies of the CIA leak case. Another is that almost all the reporting on the case itself, especially prior to the announcement of the indictment, was based on leaks.