Fired for leaking information

If you were to read that subject line, you might be excused for thinking that it referred to Libby or Rove who, we are becoming increasingly aware, leaked bits of classified information to smear a political opponent who was telling the truth and to mislead the nation into supporting a war of choice. Alas, it refers to Mary McCarthy, the CIA whistle-blower who leaked information about the CIA's secret prisons to Wapo reporter Dana Priest and, according the notoriously unreliable Andrea Mitchell, has been fired for her troubles.

That's right... Bush gets Libby & Rove to leak classified info to mislead the public and smear someone telling the unpleasant truth == OK. But, blowing the whistle on the illegal acts by agents acting in the name of the American people == firing amidst allegation of being a traitor.

Truly, up is down.

Update: even Larry Johnson, no friend of McCarthy's, thinks that this stinks:

I am struck by the irony that Mary McCarthy may have been fired for blowing the whistle and ensuring that the truth about an abuse was told to the American people. There is something potentially honorable in that action; particularly when you consider that George Bush authorized Scooter Libby to leak misleading information for the purpose of deceiving the American people about the grounds for going to war in Iraq. While I'm neither a fan nor friend of Mary's, she may have done a service for her country. She was a lousy manager in my experience, but she is not a traitor and has not betrayed the identity of an undercover intelligence officer. That dirty work was done by the minions of George Bush and Dick Cheney. It is important to keep that fact in the forefront as the judgment on Mary McCarthy's acts is rendered.