Leftists Breathless Over Another Yawner Revelation
Bush Authorized Secrets' Release, Libby TestifiedHo-Hum. Gee, the President leaks information. DUH! Today thousands of Liberal bloggers and the mainstream media (MSM) are breathless in their rush to proclaim their outrage that the President is the "Leaker in Chief" as if this is something that never has been heard of before. Good Grief! This has got to be the most none story story of the year. The President authorized leaks; what President hasn't?
Prosecutor Says Disclosures on Iraq Were Aimed at War Critic
By R. Jeffrey Smith"
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 7, 2006; Page A01
President Bush authorized White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose highly sensitive intelligence information to the news media in an attempt to discredit a CIA adviser whose views undermined the rationale for the invasion of Iraq, according to a federal prosecutor's account of Libby's testimony to a grand jury.
The court filing by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time places Bush and Vice President Cheney at the heart of what Libby testified was an exceptional and deliberate leak of material designed to buttress the administration's claim that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear weapons. The information was contained in the National Intelligence Estimate, one of the most closely held CIA analyses of whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the war.
Fitzgerald said Libby's disclosure took place as the result of "a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House, to repudiate" claims made in a July 2003 newspaper article by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was hired by the CIA to evaluate whether Iraq sought nuclear material in Niger. Wilson wrote that "some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
The White House did not challenge the prosecutor's account of Bush's and Cheney's role in orchestrating the effort to discredit Wilson yesterday. Both Bush and Cheney have been interviewed by Fitzgerald, but the details of what they told him are unknown. Fitzgerald's new account is based on Libby's grand jury testimony that Cheney told him Bush had authorized the declassification and disclosure of some of the information.
Bush has been a major critic of leaks of classified information, and his aides have repeatedly said they want to "get to the bottom" of who leaked the name of Wilson's wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, to the media, which touched off Fitzgerald's investigation . But in the past 33 months the White House has never disclosed Bush's apparent involvement in the deliberate disclosure of information meant to undermine Wilson.
Three months before Fitzgerald began his probe in December 2003, Bush said at a news conference that "I've constantly expressed my displeasure with leaks, particularly leaks of classified information. . . . If there's a leak out of the administration, I want to know who it is. And if a person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
Fitzgerald has not charged anyone with wrongdoing in the initial leak of Plame's name. In the new filing, he did not allege that Bush authorized that disclosure, and he said Bush was "unaware of the role" that Libby, then Cheney's chief of staff, played in discussing her name with a number of reporters.
The revelation of Bush's role in the disclosure effort set off an intense political debate yesterday over the propriety of the White House's use of intelligence information to undermine a critic. Democratic lawmakers lined up to demand that Bush explain his involvement in an affair they called unprecedented.
"If the disclosure is true, it's breathtaking. The president is revealed as the leaker-in-chief," said Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Legal scholars and analysts said yesterday that the president has the authority to selectively declassify intelligence reports But they also said it was highly unusual for senior officials at the White House to take such an action so stealthily, without notifying Cabinet officials or others in the administration, including the CIA authors of the National Intelligence Estimate.
According to Fitzgerald's account, Libby believed that only he, Bush and Cheney knew about the calculated disclosure. Even Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, was kept in the dark, and he wasted efforts trying separately to "declassify what Mr. Libby testified had already been declassified." Libby, meanwhile, told the reporters he contacted that the declassified information could not be attributed to him.
Fitzgerald's disclosure, in a document he filed in U.S. District Court here at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday, came in the midst of a legal battle over Libby's demand for wide access to materials related to Fitzgerald's continuing investigation.
Thos of you who read me regularly know I occasionally mention the great British Comedy series, "Yes Minister." Once more I shall indulge myself, Sir Humphrey Appleby, Permanent Secretary to the Minister (played magnificently by the late Nigel Hawthorne) once stated that "The Ship of State is the only ship which leaks from the top."
For hypocrites like Nancy "Wicked Witch of the West" Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, and Jane Harman to pretend that this is unheard of is truly contemptible. Imagine, did Harman actually declare, "If the disclosure is true, it's breathtaking?" Breathtaking Jane? Really? How is it breathtaking? The only thing breathtaking here is if this didn't happen.
Notice that, like many other Liberal bloggers will do, the Post has managed to include the Valerie Plame leak in this discussion even though there is not even a remote implication in the testimony that the President had anything to do with that. Once more we are being treated to an example of the blind obedience of the Post in toeing the Democrat line.
Full Story: Democrats Shocked, Shocked I Say that President Leaked
What do you think?
To leave your opinion click on the word "COMMENT(S)" below
posted by Will Malven at 7:13 AM
9 Comments:
You don't think the story is at least a little remarkable, given the very strong prior statements from the White House to date condemnming leaks and leakers? To most of the public, I would imagine this seems at best a bit hypocritical, at worst cynical.
NBR, has there ever been a White House that hasn't leaked and complained about leaking?
Were you born yesterday?
Well, okay, I'm young at heart, I guess. Let me just make sure I'm understanding you right. It seems to me that there are leaks and there are leaks, and then, there are condemnations and there are condemnations. Sure, every White House leaks; and every White House complains. But not every White House leaks classified security data, and then announces that it will (presumably) fire anyone found to be guilty of leaking. If Libby's testimony is right, this isn't exactly a garden-variety leak, like, say, a "sneak preview" of an upcoming speech at an economic summit.
This president went on record saying he would treat the leaking of classified security information as a matter of the highest seriousness and that anyone found to have been involved in it would be, and I quote, "taken care of."
Now it seems that at the moment he said this, he himself had already been involved in doing this very thing, for the apparent purpose of discrediting an inconvenient and annoying critic.
So, just let me be clear on what your position is. I heard the president say he took this seriously and would fire anyone who'd done it. You're saying I was stupid and naïve to believe that he wasn't lying? Or, even more to the point, that Bush himself was innocent of the thing he was accusing others of doing?
Is that what you're saying?
The President said in reference to the Valerie Plame story, September 30th, 2003: "If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And uh if the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of."
Later on July 18, 2005 he said:"...The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who is spending time investigating it. I would like this to end as quickly as possible. So we know the facts. And if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my Administration.
As a result of an Executive Order by Bill Clinton in 1995 made it legal for the President to declassify classified information.
As for what you "heard the president say," judging from what he actually said, your hearing isn't very good, or else your memory is a bit shakey.
So, sorry for being dense and all, and you're absolutely right, both my memory and hearing are poor. Sorry. But can you clarify this just a little more? I thought the general spirit of the president's remarks was to the effect that leaks were a bad thing. It seems that your comments are making the point that he didn't do anything illegal. Also, he said he would "take care of" and fire anyone who had committed a crime, and since he is the President, he cannot illegally "leak" information. When the President does it, it is not a crime because then it is "declassifying." So, he did not break the law, nor has he literally contradicted himself. I guess that that's the point of your response: Bush said he would fire anyone who committed a crime, not anyone who had legally leaked -- err, pardon me, declassified and then discreetly authorized the release of classified -- err, I meant to say, formerly classified security information to the press.
But you'll have to help me out here. You don't think there's anything dishonest about the President going on record and saying he's going to get tough on leakers and how terrible it is to leak things related to national security, and how he's going to get to the bottom of it, and all the while the fact is that he himself is at the bottom of it? Okay, it's not a crime, and I suppose, according to the wording of the statements you quote, he's not actually fibbing, but that's not the question I'm asking. Hasn't he contradicted the spirit of his own statements? After all, why bother talking tough about leaks when he has been authorizing similar leaks himself?
I guess, to me, it just seems a little disingenuous. You don't think so?
Or am I getting this all wrong?
Maybe he never meant to sound tough on national-security-related leaks. Or maybe he meant to imply that it would be acceptable and in accordance the spirit of his public statements, to "declassify" security information privately as long as the purpose is to discredit a critic.
"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is."
"Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing."
" Leaks of classified information are a bad thing,' Bush said then. 'And we've had them -- there's too much leaking in Washington. That's just the way it is. And we've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are."
For tis sport to have the engineer hoist with his own petard, or more colloquially: It's not fair to use his own words against him! Waah!
Blah Blah Blah, your really boring me.
I suggest you look up the definition of a leak.
The President authorized the release of information which he himself declassified to refute the lies of a half-witted Left-wing Democrat hack.
There are no confused moralities here, no "leaks," no "classified information" illegally released, no nefarious conspiracies here, merely a release of information.
You Liberals need to grow up.
What a very Clintonesque parsing of words. A real display of character.
In your dreams.
One of the many problems with Liberals is their unwillingness to relate events of today with the past. They see that President Bush released information in defense of this administration's policy and they scream "LEAK!" They ignore the fact that every president, without exception, has done the same thing, even when decrying the leaking of information by those around them.
Willful ignorance is the most contemptible of all behaviors, particularly when it is used to pursue a selfish desire for power and is a promulgated to in an effort to deceive the public. Standard fare for the Left.
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