Since When Does the LWM Care about the CIA?

Since Langley's been at war against the White House, that's when:

The left used to pride itself on blowing the identities of CIA agents and mucking up their operations. Look at some of the left's favorite movies, such as Robert Redford's anti-CIA, pro-leaking vehicle Three Days of the Condor. "Covert operative" in the mouths of leftists was once an occasion for cursing and gnashing of teeth; now they utter it in the hushed tones of admiration.

The left-wing press have been itching to nail Karl Rove for some time, lying in wait for something, anything, to buttress their sinister-schemer storyline about him. So even though they normally enjoy foiling CIA bumblers -- as Michael Barone pointed out, the New York Times had no qualms about blowing the cover of a CIA-run airline -- the media have suddenly become the agency's most conscientious ally. Karl Rove, it would appear from their concerned coverage and talmudic reading of laws protecting the agency, has done more damage to the CIA than the Church committee they championed.

I noticed last week that one of MSNBC's hosts, working hard to generate moral outrage about the damage Rove might have done to the CIA, asked her guest to detail the reasons one should never identify even a former CIA covert operative. And who was her guest? A former CIA covert operative. For a media that was huffing about the dangers of identifying inactive spies, it seemed to spend a lot of time last week interviewing them.