Colin Powell apparently is not the only one who wants to close down Guantanamo. Barry McCaffrey apparently thinks much the very same thing, according to Steve Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists. Below are some excerpts from McCaffrey's report on Aftergood's blog, Secrecy News:

"Arrogance, secrecy, and bad judgment have mired us in a mess in Guantanamo from which we are having great difficulty in extricating ourselves," wrote U.S. Army Gen. (Ret.) Barry R. McCaffrey in a report (pdf) on his recent trip to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

"The JTF Guantanamo Detention Center is the most professional, firm, humane and carefully supervised confinement operation that I have ever personally observed....

"Much of the international community views the Guantanamo Detention Center as a place of shame and routine violation of human rights. This view is not correct. However, there will be no possibility of correcting that view."

"There is now no possible political support for Guantanamo going forward," Gen. McCaffrey wrote.

A PDF version of McCaffrey's entire report can be found here.

Colin Powell says: "Guantanamo ought to be closed immediately." That, according to this blogging post by new Atlantic Monthly editor James Bennet.

The latest on the Ann Coulter plagiarism scandal, thanks to Justin Rood. More from Editor & Publisher.

Nicholas Kristoff has a great op-ed, fittingly publsihed on July 4, in the New York Times. For those of you, who like me, cannot afford Times Select, in yet another act of civil disobedience, I violate the copyright law with impunity and publish the column in its entirety below.

("What are you in for?", I ask a fifteen year old girl in copyright jail with me. She replies: "Ah, downloading some Pearl Jam and like some Radiohead. What are you in for?" "A Nicholas Kristof column.")

The column also references a National Journal story that I wrote about Pat Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Speaking of NJ, by the way, I had a brand new story out Monday posted on the magazine's website, which can be found here. (What is a blog for, after all, if not for self-promotion?)

Finally, the column is well worth reading for a single line (which I bolded) in this paragraph: "When I was covering the war in Iraq, we reporters would sometimes tune to Fox News and watch, mystified, as it purported to describe how Iraqis loved Americans. Such coverage (backed by delusional editorials baffling anyone who was actually in Iraq) misled conservatives about Iraq from the beginning. In retrospect, the real victims of Fox News weren't the liberals it attacked but the conservatives who believed it."

In any case, here is the column in its entirety:

With President Bush leading a charge against this ''disgraceful'' newspaper, and a conservative talk show host, Melanie Morgan, suggesting that maybe The Times's executive editor should be executed for treason, we face a fundamental dispute about the role of the news media in America.

At stake is the administration's campaign to recast the relationship between government and press.

One mechanism is the threat to prosecute editors or reporters, for the first time, under the 1917 Espionage Act. Perhaps more likely may be an effort to subpoena James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, two reporters for this newspaper, to compel them to disclose confidential sources -- and then to imprison them when they refuse. Granted, many Americans, believing that the press is arrogant and out of control, wouldn't be bothered by that.

Two disclosures by this newspaper have sparked particular outrage: a report about National Security Agency wiretapping without warrants and one about a program to track terror financing by examining bank transfers.

The first scoop strikes me as the best of journalism, for it revealed possibly illegal behavior without any apparent risk to national security. The wiretapping was already well known, and the only new information was that it was conducted without warrants. That's useful information to citizens, but not to terrorists.

The more recent disclosure about bank transfers seems to me a harder call. The program seems both legal and sensible, and it would be a setback in the unlikely event that bankers backed off in the glare of publicity.

So, I might have made that decision differently. But so far there is no evidence that the banking story harmed national security, and I'm sure that editors of this newspaper, The Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal weighed their responsibilities seriously, for they have repeatedly held back information when necessary. In contrast, the press-bashers have much less credibility.

Take Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senator Roberts has criticized The Times, but he himself is responsible for an egregious disclosure of classified intelligence. As National Journal reported in April, it was Senator Roberts who stated as the Iraq war began that the U.S. had ''human intelligence that indicated the location of Saddam Hussein.''

That statement horrified some in our intelligence community by revealing that we had an agent close to Saddam.

No responsible newspaper would risk an agent's life so blithely. And The Times would never have been as cavalier about Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as the White House was. The fact is, journalists regularly hold back information for national security reasons; I recently withheld information at the request of the intelligence community about secret terrorist communications.

More broadly, the one thing worse than a press that is ''out of control'' is one that is under control. Anybody who has lived in a Communist country knows that. Just consider what would happen if the news media as a whole were as docile to the administration as Fox News or The Wall Street Journal editorial page.

When I was covering the war in Iraq, we reporters would sometimes tune to Fox News and watch, mystified, as it purported to describe how Iraqis loved Americans. Such coverage (backed by delusional Journal editorials baffling to anyone who was actually in Iraq) misled conservatives about Iraq from the beginning. In retrospect, the real victims of Fox News weren't the liberals it attacked but the conservatives who believed it.

Historically, we in the press have done more damage to our nation by withholding secret information than by publishing it. One example was this newspaper's withholding details of the plans for the Bay of Pigs invasion. President Kennedy himself suggested that the U.S. would have been better served if The Times had published the full story and derailed the invasion.

Then there were the C.I.A. abuses that journalists kept mum about until they spilled over and prompted the Church Committee investigation in the 1970's. And there are secrets we should have found, but didn't: in the run-up to the Iraq war, the press -- particularly this newspaper -- was too credulous about claims that Iraq possessed large amounts of W.M.D.

In each of these cases, we were too compliant. We failed in our watchdog role, and we failed our country.So be very wary of Mr. Bush's effort to tame the press. Watchdogs can be mean, dumb and obnoxious, but it would be even more dangerous to trade them in for lap dogs.

Wow. After my post/column appeared on theHuffington Post about the death of Randy Campbell and Carl Wenzel, a marine who served with them left this long message on the site. What surprised me was that after the column appeared I heard a lot more from from veterans of the Vietnam and both Iraqi wars than from cancer survivors.

Here is the message/post left by Wayne Bradley:

"Murray, My name is Wayne E. Bradley. I served with Randy Campbell in Vietnam in 1965. On the day he was killed I was the one to find his body the next morning.

"It was true that his hands, his feet, chunks of legs, chest, and face [were gone.] He was laying on his bag when i found him covered in maggots.

"To this day I believe that he jumped on the grenade and not tripped it by mistake but John Chambers who was with him at the time he died thought for 20 years that he had shot his partner to death with an M14. 20 years later I told him there were no bullet holes in his body which relieved his mind.

"The story I was told by John Chambers was that they were done setting the grenades and Campbell had told Chambers to go get the guns. At that time Chambers heard some noise and looked back. There were 2 Viet Congs, at that time they threw 2 grenades 1 at each person. I believe that Chamebrs rolled away from his grenade and got fragments in his back. At the same time I believe Randy either had the grenade land by his and set off both, or he either jumped on the grenades at the same time.

"I don't know if there will be a way to prove what happened that day.

"However, I believe that it was an heroic act that they tried to do to set up an early warning system and again, its good to hear Steve Carlson's name because he was in my fire team in Vietnam. He was a good marine. We are going to have a reunion in San Diego on September 20th of 2006, this year. I have been looking for Campbell for a long time. And I think of him many days. He was quite a person. And a good friend.

"Yours Truly, Wayne Bradley."

Libby's attorneys ask for a delay for his trial on obstruction of justice and perjuy charges.

Lance Armstrong finally cleared. Long overdue.

Rush Limbaugh turns himself in to the authorities. The former head of the Food and Drug Administraton is under criminal investigation. Meanwhile, the FBI had begun investigating contracting fraud under the administration of Missouri Governor Matt Blunt. As many as a half dozen members of Congress may have become embroiled in a prostitution scandal. It feels like a minor crime way is underway. Looks like, John Amato is probably not going to be getting much sleep tonight.

Censorship at the CIA: Steve Afergood. Shaun Waterman at UPI. Shane Harris at National Journal. And David Kaplan of U.S. News posted this too-little noticed story online all the way back in October. (Was that short enough a post, Atrios?)

And finally, Eric Alterman sees it all as part of a larger picture.

Exclusive Fitzgerald Interview.... (post updated twice)

Exclusive Fitzgerald Interview!... er, unfortunately not with me. And, morevoer, well, not with the New York Times or Washington Post either.

The exclusive was scored by one Joseph Santo, a senior at Regis High School, a Jesuit college-prep high school on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. Via Dan Froomkin, Santo scored the exclusive interview in part because Fitzgerald is an alumni of the school. High school kid beats the national press! Timely story, too, with Rove before the grand jury today and all.

Alas, Santo, however, wasn't able to get Fitzgerald to spill the beans on the Plame probe. Not the kid's fault: Fitzgerald is inscrutable even for more experienced journalists such as--er, myself. (What is a blog for except to talk about yourself?)

And Fitzgerald shows once again he is adept--even when he speaks--at not saying much of anything at all. He told Santo: "Every day is new and every day is interesting. I love being a prosecutor; it's a great job, and it's very engaging."

Update, 4:21 P.M. Even though I myself have never scored an interview with Patrick J. Fitzgerald, I will be getting an interview with the kid (my competition) who broke the big story. Haven't talked to him yet. But the principal and president of his school said that J.R. has to do it, and having once been in high school myself (a public school, albeit not a jesuit school, but still knowing the fear of being called to the principal's office...), I know what that is like.

Some background on the school: Father Philip Judge, the President of Regis, told me (or is telling me... I am blogging as I interview him, what a medium blogging is!) that Regis is an all scholarship Catholic boys school, founded in 1914.

Father Judge actually knew Patrick Fitzgerald slightly; who was two years ahead of him in school. Fitzgerald was-- no surprise here-- on the debate team. Father Judge was on the speech team. Among other things, the school, Judge pointed out, won its 17th State Speech championish this year: "Our kids are kinda geeks," he said, "Not very good at sports, but good at things like speech and debate."

Second Update, 8:48 P.M: As it turns out, this school has graduated some very distinguished journalists, among them Pete Hamill and Mark Mazzetti, who just left the Los Angeles Times to cover intelligence for the New York Times. In addition, a recent graduate of Regis, a Harvard student, was one of the reporters for the Harvard Crimson who has broken the story of the alleged plagiarism of Harvard student novelist Kaavya Viswanathan.

All right, enough about this. Back to my own reporting. Plus if he we give this kid too much attention and positive re-inforcement for his story, he might choose journalism for a career instead of something... more admirable like say medicine or law... or for that matter just about any other profession undertaking.

Hey, Josh Gerstein [he works for the New York Sun, and has broken some very good stories on the CIA leak probe, including scooping me a couple of times] you got beat on this story dude!

Rove to testify later today before the federal grand jury. It will mark his fifth appearance before two federal grand juries that have probed the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA officer.

Update, 3:51 P.M. The Times has a more detailed account of Rove's grand jury appearance, by Anne E. Kornblut.

Second Update, 10:45 P.M. Video here.

Fitzgerald before the federal grand jury this morning for the second known time since last year's indictment of Scooter Libby.

Last night, I also posted a new story for my day job at the National Journal, raising questions about whether there is a double standard for investigations of leaks and other disclsoures of sensitive intelligence informaton.

Is the CIA's case against Mary O. McCarthy not as strong as they and the media first seemed to indicate? A story buried way inside the NYT on Page 17 appears to say as much:

The Central Intelligence Agency on Tuesday defended the firing of Mary O. McCarthy, the veteran officer who was dismissed last week, and challenged her lawyer's own statements that Ms. McCarthy never provided information to the news media.

But intelligence officials would not say whether they believed that Ms. McCarthy had been a source for a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles in the Washington Post about secret C.I.A. detention centers abroad. Media accounts have linked Ms. McCarthy's firing to the articles, but the C.I.A. has never explicitly drawn such a connection.

In response to questions Tuesday, the intelligence officials declined to say whether discussion of the prisons has been part of what they described as a a pattern of unauthorized contacts between Ms. McCarthy and reporters.

One intelligence officials, who was granted anonymity to speak more candidly about the sensitive issue, said it was unclear how much access Ms. McCarthy, who was assigned to the agency's inspector general's office, had to specific details about the secret prison.

Read the rest of the Times story here.

Two quick points: If accurate, the Times account and others that have appeared since the inital stories about McCarthy suggest that there is little if any evidence that she leaked classified information to the Washington Post and other news organizations because she simply did not have access to the information. And second, despite some press accounts, that the CIA was not even making that claim in the first place. (Howie Kurtz also did an online column a couple of days ago asking whether the press rushed to judgement.)

The Times account also noted that some "media accounts have linked Ms. McCarthy's firing" to the Post's story on the covert prisons. I wish the Times named them, but in the absence of that being the case, I hope that some media critic or blogger would do so. (As an incentive to anyone contemplating writing such a post or column, this blog will link to you-- and perhaps more than one of my five to seven readers, er, unique visitors will read your site

Another point... (what is a blog for except to go on and on, after all?) my National Journal story discloses that Mary McCarthy was often authorized and designated to speak to the media. That does not mean that she also had unauthorized contacts or perhaps leaked classified information, but there might have been a context to her inadvertently gong too far in conversations with press contacts encouraged by her bosses.

Finally, of course, there is the hypocrisy factor.

And this! This blog gets some attention!