Mary O. McCarthy, of Bethesda, MD, an "analyst, U.S. Government" according to official records, is listed as doinating $2000 to the Kerry Campaign in 2004. That's a big contribution for someone on a government salary.

Ed Lasky   4 22 06

Update: A reader at NRO finds some further information and draws the appropriate conclusions:

Mary McCarthy of the 20817 zip code in Bethesda Md. not only gave $2,000 to the Kerry campaign on 3/14/2004, she also gave $5,000 to the Democratic Party of Ohio on 10/5/2004. There's also a $500 contribution to the DNC on 10/29/2004, and a $200 contribution to Steven Peter Andreasen, a Democrat Congressional candidate, on 11/1/2002.

There's also a Michael McCarthy, also of 20817, that gave $2,000 to Kerry on the same day Mary did. Perhaps it's her husband. He also gave $500 to Sen. Mikulski's (D—Md.) campaign on 3/2/2004.

Now, that doesn't prove that her leak of classified national security information to the Washington Post was politically motivated, or intended to hurt the administration. But the fact that she maxed out to the Kerry campaign, and gave five grand to help Democrats in the key swing state of Ohio a month before the election shows that she was in favor of a change in administrations. You can draw your own conclusions.

It took me two minutes to look up those contributions. Why didn't the New York Times, in a 1,353—word story, find any space to add this relevant information?

Hat tip: Lucianne Goldberg

Update 2:  J.West posts a great analysis at Just One Minute:

On the subject of odd donation patterns, a search of contributors to the Democratic Party of Ohio (the vehicle for fighting the 2004 Ohio election results) in November of '04 comes up with 138 donors of $5000 or more.

Looking at the list, the vast majority are CEOs, attorneys and private business people of recognizable wealth and with a record of previous contributions. Of the remainder, a few are 'homemakers' (as in Abigale Disney and Joanne Corzine), but the only federal government related donor seems to be our gal Mary.

This election must have meant the world to her.

It would be interesting to know her financial position at that time. If only she was a republican running for governor of Maryland we could find out.

Posted by: j.west | April 22, 2006 at 11:43 AM

Brilliant work, jwest.

Posted by: clarice | April 22, 2006 at 11:45

Update 3: Rick Moran invokes Occams Razor and cautions the bloggers not to indulge in conspiracy theorizing.

I feel it important that we not start to degenerate into what the lefties have done with anything and everything about the Bush Administration. [....]

The point? It is much easier to believe McCarthy was a disgruntled partisan stuck in a CIA backwater who leaked out of spite:

Update 4: Clarice Feldman supplies more complexity, also known as digging up evidence of an organizational nexus.  Dana Priest's husband is the director of an the very well—connected CSIS. You can't dismiss the posibility of real criminal conspiracies just because there are nutty conspiracy theories floating about. Here is the spouse of a Pulitzer laureate standing up for the reputation of the Pol Pot regime, and blaming American bombings for the mass deaths following the Communist takeover.