JOEL MOWBRAY COMPARES STEVEN HATFILL to Richard Jewell.

I’m an agnostic on the merits. Jewell was innocent. Hatfill might be, but he might not be. There certainly seems to be enough evidence to justify interest in him. But why all the leaks? There seem to be just two explanations, both bad:

(1) The folks at Justice are deliberately leaking stuff to try to put pressure on Hatfill. (This seems to be a pattern, though not a very successful one judging by some other recent high-profile cases). Or,

(2) The leaks aren’t deliberate, the Justice Department is just full of people who can’t keep their mouths shut, even on major case with national-security implications.

Note that even if Hatfill turns out to be guilty, these things still reflect badly on Justice. The problem predates Ashcroft, of course, but he certainly hasn’t done anything to make it go away.

UPDATE: Rand Simberg emails with these comments:

There’s a third explanation. It is deliberate, and it’s grandstanding (including by Ashcroft) to make it look like they’ve got a suspect in their sights, to dispel criticism that they aren’t on the case (and the fact that they seem to be going out of their way to avoid coming to the conclusion that it might have middle eastern connections, kind of like the OKC investigation).

This is the same kind of chest-thumping stupidity that caused Waco. I bitched about it yesterday, calling (certainly futilely) for Bush to disband the FBI in its present form, and to can Ashcroft, Tenet, Mueller and Mineta, because it’s totally keystone cops at the agencies that are supposed to be protecting us.

Well, maybe not totally, but their response has been pretty unimpressive overall.