The Flynt Leverett censorship case

I mentioned this a couple of days ago, but I'm now beginning to think that the White House's policical effort to censor Flynt Leverett's New York Times op-ed piece is going to backfire. To re-cap, Leverett wrote an op-ed highly critical of the administration policy on Iran based on other papers he has written, submitted for clearance to the C.I.A., cleared by them, and published. The op-ed itself was cleared by the C.I.A. until the White House waded in and ordered the C.I.A. to censor it. Leverett says very convincingly that no state secrets were revealed in the op-ed. Yet, the White House is refusing to grant him the right to publish it and is threatening him with criminal prosecution if he does so in its effort to prevent political embarrasment.

The op-ed might have gotten a reading among the relatively limited number of people who read the Times' op-eds, but now Leverett is on T.V. criticizing the White House for censorship. As he says:

"It is fraudulent. It is an abuse of the pre-publication review process to silence an established critic of their policies at a time when they are under maximum political pressure to change those disastrous policies."

Hopefully, this will get the attention it deserves. I would like to see the Times wade into the debate. They certainly are a weak sister to the Times of the Pentagon Papers.