Then, of course, there was CBS anchorman Dan Rather, whose career imploded over the use of anonymity. An unnamed source had given CBS News a supposedly authentic memo showing that George W. Bush had weaseled out of many National Guard obligations. But despite Rather's insistence that the anonymous source was reliable, bloggers easily demonstrated how the document was an abject forgery.
What can we learn from all this — while savoring the irony of authors and journalists fudging on their own ethical standards as they race to uncover the supposed ethical lapses of their government officials?
If an "I accuse" author like Scott Thomas Beauchamp or Michael Scheuer avoids using his own name, or reporters like Dan Rather or Michael Isikoff won't name a source for a potentially history-changing story, there is often a good suspicion why: They apparently don't look forward to questions about why — and how exactly — they wrote what they wrote.
Instead, anonymity gives them free rein as judge and jury, exempt from cross-examination. This "trust me" practice goes against the very grain of the American tradition of allowing the aggrieved the right to face his accusers.
Sometimes the result of this increasing abuse is more lasting damage to the authors than any temporary discomfort of fending off cross-examination. Beauchamp is now a disgraced storyteller. The New Republic has lost whatever credibility it had regained after its embarrassment several years ago of printing false stories by Stephen Glass, the lying reporter who likewise used anonymous sources.
Scheuer sounds goofier each time he gives an interview — and the credibility of his once anonymously written "Imperial Hubris" shakier and shakier. Isikoff has never quite recovered his journalistic reputation. We all know what happened to Dan Rather.
And all this nemesis is as it should be. Anonymity is a vicious but seductive Siren that lures its heedless listeners to shipwreck on the shoals.