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Scoot over, yellowcake—a different leak scandal is flooding the blogosphere.

Mary quite contrary: On Friday, the CIA dismissed Mary McCarthy, a 61-year-old analyst who leaked information about secret CIA prisons to Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, who recently won a Pulitzer for her coverage of the CIA and the war on terror. McCarthy, who worked for both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, has become a cause célèbre for the left and a whipping girl for the right.

Sweetness & Light, a conservative blog run by a self-described citizen-journalist, compares McCarthy's case with the Plame scandal. He notes that McCarthy's defenders include Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson, two former CIA workers who protested the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity. "You see, you can only leak to help our enemies," he mocks. Johnson himself checks in at TPM Café, where he declares that though he "could not stand working" for McCarthy, his former manager, "she is not a traitor."

Liberal bloggers believe that McCarthy's firing indicates that there is a double standard in terms of disciplining leakers. "Leaks committed by Bush allies or with the intent to promote the President's political agenda prompt nothing but silence from him, and sometimes even a defense of the leakers," writes Glen Greenwald in an extensive post on Unclaimed Territory.
On the Wayne Madsen Report, the progressive journalist posts that McCarthy was the victim of "a White House-launched political vendetta designed to ferret out pro-Democrats in the CIA." As several conservatives, including Tom Maguire of Just One Minute, have pointed out, McCarthy donated money to both the John Kerry campaign and the Democratic Party of Ohio in 2004.

But at Captain's Quarters, conservative Captain Ed isn't buying the martyr defense. "A principled dissenter would have gone through available channels, such as to the FBI, to Congress, or to the White House, to express her discontent on an issue. Failing that, she would have resigned and spoken openly about what she knew," he opines.
Read more about Mary McCarthy.

In Slate, Christopher Hitchens calls her "more than a mere partisan."