The Washington Post throws some common sense into the debate over Bush “leaking” the NIE:
PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do. But the administration handled the release clumsily, exposing Mr. Bush to the hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy that Democrats are leveling.
Rather than follow the usual declassification procedures and then invite reporters to a briefing — as the White House eventually did — Vice President Cheney initially chose to be secretive, ordering his chief of staff at the time, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the information to a favorite New York Times reporter. The full public disclosure followed 10 days later. There was nothing illegal or even particularly unusual about that; nor is this presidentially authorized leak necessarily comparable to other, unauthorized disclosures that the president believes, rightly or wrongly, compromise national security. Nevertheless, Mr. Cheney’s tactics make Mr. Bush look foolish for having subsequently denounced a different leak in the same controversy and vowing to “get to the bottom” of it.
It’s clear that the media’s innaccurate reporting on this case is not coincidence: they willingly distorted the issue in order to conflate the disclosure of the NIE (which was legal and appropriate under the circumstances) with the Plame leak – in what is clearly an effort to discredit the Bush Administration. President Bush was right to declassify the contents of the NIE at the time. It didn’t have information on sources and methods and illustrated the information that policymakers used in making the decision to go to war. It was not a “leak” at all, and the only thing President Bush did is allow the Vice President’s office to jump the gun by a few days and start disclosing some of its contents early.
This has been another coordinated smear attempt between the Democratic Party and the media, just as the Air National Guard forgeries were, and just as the al-Qaaqaa “scandal” was. It is becoming quite clear that the majority of media outlets have allowed themselves to become propaganda organs for the Democratic Party. The headlines were deliberately crafted to try to confuse readers into believing that the President had authorized the leak of Valerie Plame. The only alternate explanation is that the vast majority of journalists are functionally illiterate and can’t understand a simple filing or do even a modicum of basic research. Either way it doesn’t look particularly flattering.
Thank heavens The Washington Post has the common sense to state the facts – sadly, the damage has already been done, and another one of the Democrats’ lies has been given credence by the inexcusably deceptive reporting of the mainstream media.
You are bat-shit insane.
I notice you dont mention the rest of the NIE that wasnt released at the time. You know, the part that says the whole Niger uranium intel was highly dubious. That means not likely, by the way.
Media as the Propaganda organ of the Dems? I suppose you believe that there is no Propaganda organ for the Repugs. You happen to be part of said organ. You are surely an “organ” at any rate.
“This has been another coordinated smear attempt between the Democratic Party and the media”
I didn’t realize Scooter Libby was a Democrat.
Thanks for the diagnosis, Doc…
That’s all well and good except for the part where there’s no such thing. The Senate Intelligence Committee already found the sourcing for the Niger claims to be accurate. Wilson’s own report buttressed those claims. The British also stand behind their information.
This issue was already investigated years ago, and the President’s words in the State of the Union were correct.
Ooh… “Repugs”… how thoughtful. And apparently I haven’t been getting my checks from the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy for the last four years. I’ll have to summon Darth Rove and ask him about that…
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Mark:
Libby isn’t part of this smear. He was just providing background information relevant to his defense. He doesn’t claim that the President authorized any leaks other than the NIE material that was already due for declassification. The media took Libby’s statements and completely blew them out of proportion. We already know that the NIE was to have been declassified, and the only thing Bush did was approve the Vice President’s office to discuss some of the material with reporters a few days early.
The difference between leaking a small part of the NIE versus making the whole thing available to the public is that they were able to misrepresent the information they provided by calling it a “key finding,” which it was not, and by failing to mention that another section of the NIE discredited the information. They were lying.
It was also well known by Bush and Cheney at the time that intelligence about the Iraq/Niger connection was widely disputed — not only by Wilson but by others inside the administration and the CIA. They wanted to discredit Wilson even though he was part of the vast majority of experts who believed the Niger claims to be bogus, which they were. So how far can you stretch the truth before it becomes a lie?
You claim that the Plame case is only loosely related to the leak of information from the NIE, but both were leaked simultaneously and this revelation puts us on a path leading to the answer we all seek: who told Libby to out Plame? We still don’t know, but it is getting tantalizingly close to Bush himself. Stay tuned for one great show! It’s almost like we are getting to the last few contestants on American Idle. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
If you approve of administrations punishing people for telling the truth, you might want to move to a country that’s more like — say — a Central American dictatorship. Blindly support the head honcho and you can make some money! Check it out!
Except for the part where that isn’t true. Again, the NIE supported the claim that Saddam was seeking uranium from Africa. Hell, he was. There’s no doubt that he was – and it’s well established by several high-level diplomatic contacts between Iraqi officials and officials from Niger.
No, it wasn’t. Wilson’s report indicated that former Trade Minister Mohammad Saeed al-Sahhaf visited Niger. Given that Niger’s other pricipal export than uranium is goats, and Iraq has plenty of those, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what they were negotiating. Here’s the US Senate report’s take on the issue:
So your entire argument is wrong. Nothing you’ve claimed is even remotely true, and it doesn’t take much hunting to debunk.
So exactly who’s the liar here?
Which assumes (incorrectly) that someone ordered Libby to leak anything. Odd that there’s absolutely no evidence of that, and if there was such a strong case for it, why hasn’t Fitzgerald indicted anyone.
The short answer is because it didn’t happen: Fitzgerald doesn’t have the evidence, and he’s hoping that playing hardball with Libby will get him somewhere – which it won’t.
Except for those of us who don’t live on Planet Partisan Joe Wilson has already been revealed to be a bald-faced liar.
Typical of the left these days – make a bunch of wildly and blantantly false accusations, then accuse anyone who is smart enough to see through them of being blind sheep. Too bad it doesn’t work here.
You’re living in a fantasy world. I can’t wait to see what conservative bloggers are writing when Cheney and Bush are both impeached and hopefully locked up. I know you will still be clinging to some fantasy about how they did nothing wrong. Never ceases to amaze me.
Have fun in la-la land!
Jay,
How the Heck do you put up with this stuff? I’m a psychologist, and even I couldn’t put up with all this…
Liberal media conspiracy? /me hands Jay a tinfoil hat
Conspiracy? No, it’s not that organized. It’s more a case of this.
Groupthink, huh?
From the blogger that never has anything but links to other people’s reasoning and arguments, usually a few days out of date?
Remember when you were the “Single Malt Pundit”? It was an appropriate name, because you’d have to be drunk off your ass to believe most of what you write; but apparently you realized that to claim the title of “pundit” you actually have to be in the business of generating original thought.
Hint: when posting on a site paid for by someone else, it behooves you to act like a reasonable guest and not insult your host (at least not outside of the bounds of reason or good taste.)
Go troll elsewhere…