Written by John Cook of Gawker - who makes ups more stories than Think Progress, apparently has outed a CiA staffer - the one responsible for finding Bin Laden.
“John Cook of Gawker attempted this week to out the CIA staffer who spearheaded the effort to kill Osama bin Laden.
In a post titled “Is This the Guy Who Killed Bin Laden?” Cook attempts to isolate the staffer, referred to in the AP’s coverage as an anonymous “John”, within press photography of then CIA-now SecDef Leon Panetta testifying about the successful raid, and from the same individual’s presence in the background of White House photos. The AP was probably told too much in that piece to give people like Cook something to dig into, but that’s another story.
Cook does not know the man’s title, the man’s name, nor does he give any indication in his piece of having made a call to the relevant offices to determine his identity (he bases his post entirely on the accusations of another blogger). He could be a scheduler or a personal staffer. Or he could be the key figure Cook speculates he is.
But whether Cook is correct or not, this once anonymous staffer at the CIA is now a target.”
Now we don’t know just what level this staffer was or whether outing them violated the law. However given that Cook was so adamant about investigating the outing of Valerie Plame I find this odd indeed. However, Gawker should do the right thing and suspend Cook, not for outing staffer, but by reporting unsubstantiated drivel.
