Christmas in Cambodia.

It appears that, to the right blogosphere, outing CIA agents and blowing covert operations is not only perfectly OK but also mandatory. They (and Fox) are enthusastic about the fact that John Kerry claims that he spent Christmas 1968 in Cambodia escorting a CIA officer who was looking for Viet Cong sanctuaries and that John O'Neill claims that he wasn't. The argument that he wasn't is based on the word of swift boat veterans (who have been caught in many contradictions on other issues already) and on the fact that there is no written proof in Kerry's military record, his diary or a letter he sent to his superiors.

All this proves the shocking fact that covert operations are covert. Since the US was denying that US personel were violating Cambodian sovereignty, the operation (if it occured) would hardly have been recorded in an official record. In substance Kerry is accused of not writing classified information in a diary which could be stolen . Clearly he is not an upstanding straight shooter like Scooter Libby and the people who blew the Khan operation. Kevin Drum notes that the diary entry appears to come as close as was legal or wise to recording the mission

Kerry's
war journal mention[s] only that he was near the Cambodian border on
Christmas Eve, not across it. (Although the journal entry ends with a sarcastic
message to his superiors: "Merry Christmas from the most inland Market Time
unit" — at a minimum a reference to being right on top of the Cambodian border.
Then: "You hope that they'll court marshal you or something because that would
make sense" — possibly a reference to crossing the border.)