Plugging a Leak, CIA style

Seems like some people are starting to wonder if the whole "Hidden CIA detention centers" story wasn't just some form of misinformation put out by the CIA itself to try and find the source of their security leaks. If true, it was pretty much a perfect plan.

• Create a juicy story that the anti-Bush obsessed media would jump all over themselves to get.
• Allow only a select few people know the details.
• Wait for it to appear on the front page of every newspaper from here to Timbucktoo.
• Wait for the expected EU investigations to come forward with reports showing no evidence said centers exist.

If anything the only drawback is that, in general, the MSM is much less likely to make a big deal of the complete lack of corroborating evidence, or the results of the EU report that could not find any such camps, then they were over the original story. But I guess it's just a matter of which is more important, one more PR hit in an environment where even perfectly legal, and routinely used, defensive measures targeting known terrorists can be spun as attacks on Americans civil liberties, or catching agents who are using their position to follow a political agenda. I'd have to side with the latter.

Now, this is all based on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty or course and in the end it could turn out that the original stories were true, but even if that happens, this still shines as a great example of modern journalism standards at their finest; if you can find an anonymous source with a nice juicy scandal, run with it and don't worry about fact checking.

Do they do recalls on Pulitzers?

(h/t Captain's Quarters)