When the media called for a special counsel in the non outing of a non covert agent, Valerie Plame, they unleashed a precedent that they will forever regret. They set the bar so low on the subject of Valerie Plame’s CIA position (which was still too high for Fitzgerald to find any criminal act regarding the news of her employment) that REAL national security leaks are now fair game.

Jack Kelley sees the same thing today (as does Mac Ranger who I link to constantly on this matter) as he points out the media deserves what they unleashed:

Journalists note there is little difference between what Mr. Rosen and Weissman are accused of doing, and what reporters who have published stories based on leaks of classified information have done, and beads of sweat form on their brows. The chickens hatched when journalists demanded a special prosecutor be appointed in the Valerie Plame case are coming home to roost.

…

“What the New York Times has done is nothing less than to compromise the centerpiece of our defensive efforts in the war on terrorism,” writes Gabriel Schoenfeld in the current issue of Commentary. “If information about the NSA program had been quietly conveyed to an al Qaida operative on a microdot…there can be no doubt the episode would have been treated by the government as a cut and dried case of espionage. Publishing it for the world to read, the Times has accomplished the same end.”

Read the whole thing, but this guided missile coming at the news media was launched by the media, and targetted by the media. Plame’s employment at the CIA was well known to the media since I am sure she was the secondary source for her husband’s claims in the early, pre-Joe pieces by Pincus and Kristof. The irony of this is just too funny. The media know Valerie works at the CIA from their reporting, but when it comes out they claim the administration leaked it and call for a special prosecutor! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.