There is an AP story, by Jonathan Katz, currently making the rounds. At ArmyTimes.com, it is headed “Frist: Leak, not prison activity is a concern. ”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he is more concerned about the leak of information regarding secret CIA detention centers than activity in the prisons themselves.

Frist told reporters Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is “not concerned about what goes on” behind the prison walls.

“My concern is with leaks of information that jeopardize your safety and security - period,” Frist said. “That is a legitimate concern.”

…

The [Washington] Post’s story said the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaida captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, part of a covert prison system set up by the agency four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries. Those countries, the Post said, include several democracies.

Well, kudos to Frist, and I hope the Republicans can demonstrate a backbone and take the fight to the Dems on this and related matters, but that’s not the reason for this post by RWB. What I’m interested in is the last paragraph of this AP story. It reads as follows:

Frist and Hastert did not complain when a Bush administration official leaked the name of CIA operative in an attempt to retaliate against the agent’s husband, who criticized use of pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

Wooh! Excuse me?! What a collection of loaded premises that nakedly display where the AP stands on things (if we needed the evidence). And to punctuate the story with this final sentence is a blatant political shot.

It clearly has not been established by anyone that a “Bush administration official” leaked the name of Valerie Plame. As everyone knows, Scooter Libby has been charged with crimes related to allegedly telling lies to the grand jury. No one has been charged with leaking the name (if indeed it was even a crime) and it is still not known publicly who gave the name to columnist Robert Novak, who was the one who actually put it in print in the first instance. Novak has given us to believe that it was someone who worked in the administration - but we don’t know what he said under oath, if anything, and we don’t know the result of enquiries made with whoever he may have named to the grand jury . And, since we don’t know who gave Novak the name, we can hardly state with certainty that the purpose of providing the name was “retaliation against the agent’s husband.”

But, apparently, Jonathan Katz has better information, to allow him these kinds of categorical statements. You would think, sitting on this bombshell, he would make it the subject of his next dispatch, instead of this small potatoes stuff on Frist and Hastert.

Note: the revealing paragraph has already been excised from some other postings of the same story, as here.

This kind of thing often happens with slips by the AP that lift the veil on their agenda. It’s out there for a few minutes or hours - probably until some editors at other publications raise their eyebrows, or some e-mail complaints start coming in - and then it gets drawn back. Well, someone should let them know: you can’t unring the bell.

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