For some background, this is an interesting story today from The Hill. “He signed the letter. Wait, no he didn’t.”

But there are some interesting twists in the comments of Trent Lott yesterday.

Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) told CNN’s Ed Henry Tuesday afternoon that he believed it was a Republican senator who gave information about secret CIA jails abroad to the Washington Post, RAW STORY can report.

Lott said that much of the information contained in the Post report — which stated that the U.S. was holding terrorist suspects in secret CIA jails overseas — was discussed at a meeting of Republican senators last Tuesday.

From The Hill story referenced above, the plot thickens:

CNN reported earlier in the day that Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) had said a Republican senator may have leaked information about the so-called black sites to the Post. Lott told reporters yesterday [MZ: 10/9/2005] that he had been talking about another Post article. He said he was not talking about the article about the detention and interrogation facilities.

Atrios is ecstatic:

Money quote from Lott; “We can not remain silent. We have met the enemy, and it is us.”

All just reported on CNN. We are, folks, witnessing the full-on implosion of the national Republican Party. And not a second too soon.

Fair Shot is furious that Cheney met with Republicans alone and shared this info with them in the first place.

But in all of this, the Ginger Man smells something fishy with Lott’s statement.

But I have a number of problems with the Lott scenario all the same:

The Post article simply does not look like something that was dashed off in less than one day on the basis of a leak from a Senator or hill staffer. To the contrary, looking first just at the substance of the thing, it appears to be a throughly researched piece, with a great deal of background and context woven into it, not simply a wad of Capitol Hill dish. Moreover, even allowing for some of the, shall we say, vagaries of how reporters describe anonymous sources, the piece is sourced variously to: “U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement”; “current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents”; “officials familiar with the program”; “current and former and U.S. and foreign government and intelligence officials”; “four current and former officials”; and, more specifically, in some instances to “a former senior intelligence officer who worked in the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center”; “another former senior CIA official”; and “a senior CIA officer.” If we were dealing with Judith Miller rather than Dana Priest, I might be less credulous, but I’d say it is very safe to say that Priest has at least four sources, probably more — at a minimum, two distinct former CIA officials (part of the Goss purge, no doubt), one current CIA official (that’s one brave hombre), one or more current or former State officials. I would like to think that there’s somebody at Justice with a conscience and a set of cojones as well.

My take on it is this. Real leaks (intentional knowing disclosure) of classified information that are damaging to the security of the United States should be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Period. If it was a Republican Senator, so be it. National security is a deadly serious matter, and politics and who might get bitten should play no part in whether or not an investigation goes forward.

If (and it’s a big “if”) Bill Frist is hedging because he thinks it may have been a Republican (as The Hill article implies), then he ought to stand up and do the right thing. And Hastert should continue to move forward, even if he got blind sided a few hours early by Drudge.

Aggressive Conservative says “Frist screwed up big time.” In the timing of the news release maybe, but certainly not in calling for the investigation. Again, national security should transcend party lines, and it appears to me that’s the approach Lott is taking and the one Frist should be.

Bob Kaufman rants about how clumsy the administration is, continuing to refer to discussions of already-publicly-known Valerie Plame’s name and employer as a “leak” and goes on with this, which got a chuckle out of me:

Shortly after, Bill Frist flipped, and said that he hadn’t signed the call for an investigation. OOPS. A couple of hours later, he flopped and said he did sign it. DOUBLE OOPS. The C.I.A. had already turned the matter over to the Justice Department.
There are just too many leaks for Bill Frist to handle. After all, he is a surgeon. They need somebody trained to deal with the righteous bunch in Congress. Say, a group urologist.

Alpha Liberal’s site has a pretty clear example of what appeares to me to be a double standard on the left.

Quote 1:

Now is not a time to praise Libby or Rove for their service or to remind America of the due process Bush routinely flaunts. Now is the time to punish those involved for damaging the national security of the country, fire them, and send them home in disgrace. If Bush cannot bring himself to do that, he is not fit to remain President of this nation.

Quote 2 (Five days later):

It is horrifying to know that House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist aren’t demanding to know who authorized such an abomination and why anyone in their right mind would think it would contribute to the security of the United States.

No, Hastert and Frist want a probe into who leaked the news.

Disgraceful.