The Plame Thing

So I haven't been following the whole Judith Miller/Matt Cooper thing very closely, mostly because I don't have the stomach for it. So it's entirely possible that I'm missing something in the assessment that follows: My impression is that the critical problem with the Plame affair is that a CIA agent's cover was blown, thus endangering her life and the success of any cases she may have been working on, and, as far as I can tell, for no real gain as far as transparency of governmental functioning and whatnot. Meanwhile, other stories are getting squashed out of fear of similar trials and jail time - The Cleveland Plain Dealer is not reporting two stories of "profound importance" because they are based on illegally leaked documents. I know it's the easy comparison, but the Pentagon Papers were also illegally leaked documents, but I believe history generally agrees that it was a good thing those facts became public knowledge. Shouldn't it be a fairly obvious line to draw between information for the public good, information regarding the misbehavior, and potentially illegal behavior of our government, and, you know, information that puts one individual's life at risk with no public gain?