On February 2nd, NBC correspondent Pete Williams announced Breaking News during the 5 PM ET edition of Hardball: the Christmas Day Bomber, Umar Abdul Mutallab, was giving fresh, actionable information to the FBI which the United States was in turn "aggressively chasing down."
Less than an hour later, this NewsBuster blogged on the matter, wondering whether by leaking the news, "the Obama administration compromised national security," in an attempt to deflect the criticism it had been receiving for mirandizing Mutallab rather than treating him like the enemy combatant he is.
On today's Fox News Watch, panelist Jim Pinkerton gave a "hats off" to this NewsBuster for being first to raise the issue.
JIM PINKERTON: We got the report about the Underwear Bomber is now happily talking, now that he's been mirandized. He in fact is talking. Hats off to Mark Finkelstein of NewsBusters, who I think was the first to make the point that it was jeopardizing national security to have this report about him talking come out now.
JON SCOTT: And Senator Kit Bond got into a fight with the White House about that, which maybe didn't get the coverage it deserved, as well.
I note that Tucker Carlson, subbing for Hannity, led last night's show by expressing his outrage over the intentional White House leak. I haven't seen any other network coverage of the issue. So good on Fox News—and thanks for the "hats off"!
