White House Reveals Top CIA Spy to Journalists

Our White House has screwed up again. This time, in case you haven't already heard, they accidentally revealed the name of our top CIA spy in Afghanistan to a group of some 6,000 journalists. Well, somebody in the group noticed the error, Scott Wilson of The Washington Post, and he did what any red-blooded American should do, he told them about it. Oops, they said! And then what did they do? They issued the exact same list but with the CIA spy's name deleted. Oh, sure, like wouldn't that have made the error a little obvious? Like one reporter said, it was sort-of like "trying to un-ring the bell."

The official's name, identified as "chief of station," was included in the White House press office's basic list of senior officials President Obama met with during his surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday. The list of 15 names apparently came first from the military, and was circulated by the White House press office. 

"There's simply no excuse for it," John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, saying the blunder left him "speechless. In a White House that is filled with press flacks ... was there no one who understood the significance of what they were doing?" he said. "Somebody's head should roll for this. ... This is utter incompetence." 

Wilson says it appeared that some "very junior people" were just trying to follow an order without realizing the "ramifications." He also said he wishes he had caught the mistake before sending out the list in the pool report. "I wish I had, I regret it," he reportedly said. Oh, by the way, they also did the same thing before, back in 2003, when they exposed another CIA agent.