Linda Tripp has won her civil suit against the Pentagon, and will get over half a million dollars in compensation.

As Juan Non-Volokh notes:

Since so much of the blogosphere is outraged by the disclosure of confidential and personally damaging information by government officials in retaliation against political opponents, I assume those obsessed with the Plame affair will not let this story go unmentioned. There was an unquestioned violation of federal law here, leading to a substantial settlement, but the culprit was never identified, let alone punished.

Yes, Ken Bacon was the one who released the information to the public, but we never found out who in the White House gave it to him, and he was never even reprimanded, let alone punished within the law.

But of course, it was OK for the Clinton administration to break the law, because Linda Tripp was "fat," and "betrayed a friend" (a "friend" who was suborning her perjury and conveying threats against her and her children). So no one pays any price except the taxpayer.

Eric Alterman sets the story straight:

This CNN report is a complete bunch of crap; a perfect example of how to spin a lazy reporter. The piece totally swallows the garbage put out by Tripp?s attorneys part of a long-running spin campaign that turned all coverage of her upside down. Tripp was arrested on grand larceny charges as an adult, and in a court plea bargain, she pled guilty to reduced charges, of loitering. The case involved her theft of wrist watch from a guy whom she picked up that night.        
       She subsequently applied for top security clearance for a job at the Department of Defense. The security form demands that anyone who has ever been arrested, regardless of the outcome of the case, must disclose this to the government. Tripp lied on the form, saying she had never been arrested. The form explicitly states that to lie about one?s arrest record is potentially a felony offense. Tripp nonetheless lied, and signed the form, swearing that everything she had said was true.        
       When her name surfaced in the news in connection with the Lewinsky affair, reporter Jane Mayer was assigned a profile of her by the New Yorker. I interviewed Mayer about her reporting and learned that during the course of her investigation, she tracked down numerous friends and family members of Tripp, without any help, she assures me, from the White House or anyone else in the government.        
       Mayer found Tripp s step-mother, who blurted out that Tripp had such a foul disposition, she?d even gotten into a brawl and been arrested. The step-mother, who has confirmed that she was the source of this information, and gave Mayer sufficient detail to allow her to file an FOIA request, and to track down Tripp?s arrest record from the local police station where she was busted.        
       Armed with a facsimile of her arrest, Mayer then called the Pentagon, to see whether the Defense Department had any record of her arrest, and to see whether she had properly disclosed it, as is required under the law. The press office at the Pentagon checked her record, and reported back to Mayer that Tripp had no arrest record, as far as they knew.        
       This was the ostensible infringement of Tripp?s privacy. The government did not disclose her arrest record. The government attempted to suggest she had no arrest record. It was her step-mother who blew the whistle on her, not the government. And it was old-fashioned, factual reporting that disclosed that Tripp lied to get a top security clearance.        
       But with the help of a huge network of right-wing lawyers and press outlets, Tripp turned her potentially felonious lie, and her felony arrest history into a cause celebre, shifting all blame for her own miserable conduct onto the Pentagon, and claiming falsely yet again, that somehow the government had released her arrest record and tarred her name. She tarred her own name. The government (incorrectly) denied she had an arrest record. Mayer wrote the story, straight.        
       The CNN story in question makes a zillion mistakes, every one of them in Tripp?s favor. It says she was a minor, when arrested. She was an adult. It says the government leaked information about her arrest. It did not. It says the case involved drinking ? it was a grand larceny charge, which as George W. Bush, could tell you, is much more serious. They say she was never charged. She was charged in an open court with Grand Larceny, and then, in a plea agreement, she pled guilty to a reduced charge of loitering. The case was adjudicated, not dropped.        
       And no one until this day has ever prosecuted her or disciplined her for lying and covering up her arrest, in order to get an undeserved top security clearance. Instead, the government is paying her $600,000 despite the fact that she clearly lied about her status.        
       The media has done a completely miserable job at holding its own against her spin-meisters. The press seems to have been incapable of getting the facts of her case right ? over and over she?s portrayed herself as a juvenile, and claimed she was never charged, when all you have to do is go to look at The Smoking Gun.

Well, as usual, he sets a story. But rarely straight.

Sadly, I haven't time to deal with all this right now, but perhaps someone else can dissect this pile of steaming tripe.