Back in the day, anything that contained Confidential, Secret or Top Secret information had to be clearly marked as such at the top of each page and the Secret / Top Secret documents were also identified with a five-letter word designator. As I understand it, that’s still the case. The designators change every so many years and reportedly vary from op to op (I have read, but can’t confirm that – I only ever saw the pair we used in voice intercept op training and actual practice).

So right off the bat, this story sounds really, really fishy. One doesn’t (or at least didn’t) identify truly classified information – certainly not Secret or Top Secret information – with notes in the margins or ‘paragraph markers’. If a document contains ANY classified info, it’s classified. Period.

Pincus is apparently using another anonymous source to spin his innuendo here (in keeping with the practice that started this mess in the first place I might add, i.e., printing Wilson’s original allegations without confirming what the CIA concluded, and determining whether or not Wilson’s perceptions were accurate). That’s problem number two.

Problem three is that without actually reading the paragraph in question, in context with the rest of the document, we have no way of knowing whether the reference to Valerie Wilson’s status was or was not actually the (supposedly) classified information.

Problem four is that even in the absolute worst case, that is if the memo is as described (questionable), and was seen by Rove (pure speculation), his “yeah, I’ve heard that too” is hardly the same as (nor ‘morally’ equivalent to) confirmation of the rumor based on the information in the memo. Regardless of what Rove may or may not have read elsewhere, he had indeed “heard that too” from Novak.

So … here we have a reporter, trying to cover his past errors in judgement, reporting on a document he hasn’t seen, that’s described by (yet another) anonymous source who obviously has an axe to grind with the Bush Administration, in an effort to manufacture substance where none exists. Without blinders, and with no specific additional information, this reads as innuendo and speculation designed to foment suspicion.

Based on that, the media will eat it up. Nothing like performing a special investigation in the press.