PROFILE HIM, PROFILE THEE, JUST DON'T DARE TO PROFILE ME :

State of Embarrassment : An American journalist is detained because he questioned Foggy Bottom's Saudi policies. (Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2002)

Now we know: The State Department can get tough when it wants to, if only against fellow Americans.

National Review writer Joel Mowbray had the temerity at Friday's press briefing to question State spokesman Richard Boucher about "Visa Express," a program that has made it easier for Saudi Arabian citizens to enter the U.S. without interviews. Mr. Boucher had denied that the U.S. ambassador to Riyadh wanted to terminate Visa Express, even though a classified cable had clearly said otherwise. Mr. Mowbray called the spokesman on his spin, and when the reporter went to leave the building he was detained and questioned by security officers for about 30 minutes.

State's line is that Mr. Mowbray was detained because he'd quoted from classified material, as if that's any justification. It's no crime to report such news, only to leak it, and the cable's contents were reported in both National Review and the Washington Post. Mr. Mowbray's reporting has embarrassed State, and its officers were clearly engaging in intimidation to dig up the source. It's the kind of thing they do in, well, Riyadh.

While no fan of the State Department, here's the question I think we need to ask : Had a young Arab man revealed that he had seen a classified document and revealed this while he was on the grounds of the government building where it originated, would the National Review, Wall Street Journal and other voices of the Right be howling about the injustice of detaining him just long enough to see if it could be determined who'd leaked it to him? Posted by Orrin Judd at July 15, 2002 2:33 PM