Dana Priest’s Troubling Connections
Charles Johnson
Wed May 10, 2006 at 6:43 pm PDT • Views: 237
Jennifer Verner points out a number of Pulitzer-winning Washington Post reporter Dana Priest’s Troubling Connections.
In a National Public Radio interview just days after the Washington Post published her Pulitzer Prize winning article on the CIA’s “secret prisons,” Dana Priest predicted that her work would cause “political embarrassment” for the Bush administration. Her prediction was not clairvoyance-based. The Washington Post released the article at a point of maximum impact—the eve of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s crucial visit to America’s European allies in the War on Terror. Priest’s shocking claims did more than embarrass the administration; they harmed America’s national security and intelligence gathering capabilities during a time of war. The allegations and insinuations of torture, black sites and gulags on European soil deeply handicapped Rice’s mission by fueling anti-American political forces in Europe and straining relations with vital allies in the War on Terror.
But recent developments in the story lead to more disturbing questions: Was political embarrassment for the Bush Administration her educated prediction or her deliberate intent? And were the allegations true? After months of investigation by European investigators, no evidence has yet surfaced to support her claims about “secret prisons.” Further, fired CIA officer Mary O. McCarthy, one of Priest’s reported “anonymous” sources, has been outed as a Democratic partisan who worked closely with members of the Clinton Administration and the John Kerry Campaign foreign policy team, including Sandy Burger, Richard Clarke, Rand Beers and Joe Wilson.
As if that isn’t enough to raise eyebrows, Dana Priest’s matrimonial tie, not generally known to readers of the Washington Post, leaves a strong appearance of conflict of interest. As it happens, she is married to William Goodfellow, a far-left political activist and current executive director of the Center for International Policy (CIP), who has been at the vanguard of many of the most rabid attacks on Bush Administration policy.
Goodfellow has been described by his wife as a human rights activist. Yet, that is hardly an accurate or complete job description. For the past 30 years, William Goodfellow has pushed radical causes in a string of inter-related far-left think tanks.
Frank says: