Double Super Secret
In his book, Secrets, Daniel Ellsberg talks about the seduction of top secret clearance. I can't quote him directly because I don't have the book, but basically he says that once you get top secret clearance you start to think that all the people who don't have top secret clearance can't possibly know as much as you do even though they're, maybe, experts in their field or smarter than you. So you begin to rely only on yourself and other people with top secret clearance which means that your decision making becomes badly limited and you make worse decisions than you would otherwise.
Michael Isikoff writes about Cooper's source for outing Valerie Plame:
It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.
The press whines about how no one understands that they've got, like, journalistic ethics and standards and, like, really important big hard, like, stuff to deal with and no one can know how difficult it is to go on television talking head shows and spout off about stuff they don't know anything about. But what they act like is a bunch of kids with decoder rings, just havin' fun with their super sekrit friends.
If it turns out that what they knew and kept secret decided an election, my disgust for them will know no earthly bounds.