“Like most people at the times,” New York Times executive editor Bill Keller told a Princeton gathering on November 14, “I am suffering from a serious case of Judy Miller fatigue.” Aren't we all? But before we succumb, a deeper look would be timely.

Looking at the reactions of the right-wingers to l'affaire Novak-Rove-Wilson-Plame, you'd have to conclude that, for them, national security is a sometime thing -- a talking point or a symbolic flourish, but not a real-world imperative involving actual lives, dangers, and government workings. The smears and (to be generous) fat, sloppy errors directed against former Ambassador Joseph Wilson pour forth as thick and fast as finger paint. The anticipatory excuses for Karl Rove -- who, if he did not commit actual crimes, may have at the least leaked classified information about Wilson's CIA–agent wife en route to the smears against Wilson -- pour forth just as thick, just as fast. When there's White House discipline to be maintained, who gives a flying flag about national security?