Patterico - clearly bored on a Friday night - has identified another pseudonymous LA Times journalist. Like he says pseudonymity per se is not a crime. In fact it can be a good idea and so, likewise, is the fact that the journalist posted with a not completely accurate email address; anyone with any sense is cautious about posting their real email address in a place where it might get harvested by Mrs Abacha and her friends.
So, while it is indeed interesting that the LA Times employs a person who thinks Bush and his admirers are "fascist" that isn't a firing offence and I feel a little bad wondering who it is but its not going to stop me posting the following though. Masha is a common Russian (and environs) diminutive of Maria (or sometimes Mary) so the likelihood is that its a lady with one of those two names who has some connection with the former Soviet Union. I failed to find any obvious Maria or Mary amongst the LA Times journalists that seem to have stuff on the LATimes.com website today and I don't really care enough to dig deeper.
In what I see as related news, another would be anonymous lady called Mary was today fired from the CIA for being a leaker. Unlike the pseudonymous Masha who merely voiced opinions that her employer might be embarrased about, Mary McCarthy apparently leaked information about a government program that she disapproved of. Given that
This is a violtion of her employment contract
This appears to have significantly harmed the US's relations with some allies
There seems to be no good justification for her acts which appear to me to be the height of irresponsibility. Part of the reason why I am so happy that the Libby trial is going on is that I think that journalists and their sources need to balance the desire for a scoop against some negative consequences. Since it is clear that these people are uniformly selfish, attempts to reason based on concepts of "national interest", "patriotism" and the like are doomed to failure, so the only obvious deterrent is to impose some harsh negative effects on those who get caught. If I were Porter Goss I think I would revise all contracts to make it clear that any CIA employee caught leaking anything to the press would forfeit any security clearance in perpetuity, forfeit any earned pension or severence pay, and be placed on a public leakers list rather like the sex offenders lists so that any future employer would be able to decide whether they wanted such a person working for them. I would also ensure that agree that they may not benefit financially from any subsequent book/documentary etc. that relates to their CIA employment and that if they co-operate in any way with such a project then the copyright of the entire project is to be owned by the CIA, not just their part.
If there really is a story that they feel they really need to tell then they'll still tell it, and they can make that decision entirely disinterestedly because they won't have any financial incentive to accidentally sway them.
Update: The LA Times's Tim Rutten has the same tie between tales that I do, but funnily enough he takes a rather different view
The incident has provoked a kind of cybernetic thunderstorm, and one of the most revealing claps came from talk show host Hugh Hewitt, who used his popular blog to argue against what The Times had done.
In his view, "The paper should admit that their journalists are just polemicists who carry their opinions with them into battles they care deeply about. They are as biased as the day is long and getting longer. They aren't objective, and never have been�. Hiltzik may be the most honest guy at the Times."
Here, as in Bennett's and Johnson's attack on the three prize-winning reports, we confront an attempt to win through bluster and intimidation what cannot be gained through politics or persuasion.
It seems to me that Rutten is wilfully missing the point here and clearly - if unwittingly - demonstrates my point about large swathes of the MSM have no concept of ideas like "national interest". I tend to agree with Tim that, in an ideal world, we would not be seeking punishment under statutes like treason, but that would be because, rather than see the secret program details splashed across the news we would have a whistleblower reporting her or his reservations internally. Of course it is also noticable that Mr Rutten fails to explain to his readers why Mr Hiltzik's behaviour was unacceptable - it wasn't the use of pseudonyms, but rather the way the pseudonyms were used to make it appear like one person agreeing with another.