Posted on 04/08/2006 8:42:11 AM PDT by Carling
WASHINGTON, April 7 — That President Bush authorized an aide to disclose classified intelligence on Iraqi weapons, as asserted in court papers, comes as no shock to official Washington. The leaking of secrets has long been a favored tool of policy debate, political combat and diplomatic one-upmanship.
"We've had leaking of this kind since the administration of George Washington," said Rick Shenkman, a presidential historian at George Mason University.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Just eight secomds apart...
I know, are we good, or what. Very finely attenuated bull shit detectors...
Exactly - it ain't a leak of information ... it's the release of information!
Silly me, of course you are right. I certainly would rather have Cinthia McKinney, Ted Kennedy, and Russ Feingold protecting my information.
In a related thought, what if we had two school systems, one Republican and one Democrat. One system could focus on gay promotion, sex eductation, tolerance, eco-studies... and the other could teach reading, writing, and calculation. How would that work out?
I wish the Bush Admin had made a stronger case about this early on. And the fact that after spending ONE WEEK at a hotel bar Wilson had miraculously achieved the credibility to refute years of intelligence gathering by the USA, UK, Italy, and half a dozen other countries. This alone renders the entire Wilson "investigation" incredible and ridiculous on it's face, and exposes it as an blatant hatchet job by a renegade, treasonous CIA.
What part is so hard to understand?
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None of it is hard to understand, and we have no idea who originally initiated and authorized that particular information that is in question. Could have been any one of hundereds of people or maybe potentially more. I think your image of WHO classifies information is a bit warped and I can ensure you that it is not Bush who classifies it.
When I served in the military, I was entrusted with much SECRET information for which I was responsible, and I can tell you, that it was not initiated in any way by the President, nor in any way came in contact with the President. It is a much bigger scenario than you are trying to paint, and the processes involved are far more complex than meets the eye. I would suggest just a big too much wishful thinking in this particular situation has run away with the opinions of people who have not had any experience with classified information handling.
What is unfortunate in all of this is that Libby requested all documents related to the declassification of the NIE. Fitz is resisting giving them to him saying in his filing, "There is no basis for extending disclosure of documents related to the declassification and disclosure of the NIE to documents from the NSC, State Department, CIA, or any other agency." Thus, we will probably never know what process President Bush followed, unless of course it is leaked.
"...I, for one, am disappointed...Jake"
"No, you are just ignorant."
LOL ... Indeed, he is.
Question is, is he another troll or just a victim on continued media misinformation?
This so-called "leak" was nothing more than an authorization to Libby to CORRECT THE RECORD FOR REPORTERS ON LIES THAT JOE WILSON WAS SAYING. This was not some underhanded leak. The National Intelligence Estimate from October 2002 was PUBLICLY DECLASSIFIED IN JULY 2003 WHEN THE JOE WILSON SMEAR FIRST CAME UP AND THE DEMOCRATS BEGAN THE SECOND-GUESSING AND FINGER-POINTING. Publicly released and put into the Congressional Record!
You can check the Congressional record here from July 2003, where Rep King explains what was released and why:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2003_cr/h072103.html
"HON. PETER T. KING
of new york
in the house of representatives
Monday, July 21, 2003
Mr. KING of New York. Mr. Speaker, in light of the incessant barrage
of attacks of inaccurate and baseless charges being made against
President Bush by his political opponents and their allies in the
media, I thought it important to include in the Record the declassified
portions of the National Intelligence Estimate released by the White
House this past Friday."
Above-board, appropriate, proper and legal ... and able to disprove smears of the Bush-haters. all the things the Democrats hate to see.
"Bush needs to have a presser and get this information out IMMEDIATELY. Half the country thinks the guy is illegally leaking intel, and the liars in the MSM are willing to set this template and perpetuate it."
"GOP party hacks such as MNJohnnie are incapable of seeing the bigger picture. Although Bush is in the right on this, the way he and his flunkies on the WH press staff handles the MSM is beyond horrible."
It's hard to argue with you, given that the White House is getting beaten up - AGAIN - over something where they did NOTHING WRONG, and their poll #s are in the basement. The WH press office and PR has been spotty the whole second term, and in fact I would argue has been bad since mid-2003, when Bush lost Ari Fleischer. The very good 2004 campaign obscured the weak WH press office.
But aside from wishing we get a better press secretary in a WH shakeup, too much blaming White House could become a blame-the-victim behavior, when the real issue is a hostile media that is gettign away with smears and bias.
The drive-by biased media has put such biased headlines out there, and mixed-up the facts so clearly, I doubt this is mere negligence, but an orchestrated media attack by a liberal media that has decided they can go after Bush without recrimination. In the past, their targets were the underlings - Rove, DeLay, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, even Cheney. Now, they are going after the big game.
Unleashing Bush in more direct communications and press conferences may help. Letting the media itself be the filter is like asking the school bully to take care of your lunch money. Dont even ask.
It just so happens, I held a top secret clearance while in the military and do know of what I speak.
Information that is classified from confidential up to Top secret is only on a need to know basis. A person with a TSC may not even have a need to know to see a secret document.
The President as CIC can determine who fits the category, what to declassify, what to release, and to whom by executive order and the power invested in him by the constitution.
It won't matter anyway; the media will distort President Bush's words anyway. They are aligned with the democrats, and will distort, lie, cheat, steal, and malign at will. Look at the headlines on Drudge: "we know how to destroy people...its what we do", a reporter caught on tape. Even though that is related to the Page 6 story-line. I recently watched some democrat hack journo on C-Span (can't remember name). She made the following statement: "It is our job to create dissention". So, drive by media, are no longer there to report the news or facts, they are there to create havoc, in their own minds.
The President as CIC can determine who fits the category, what to declassify, what to release, and to whom by executive order and the power invested in him by the constitution.
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Sure, of course. And so can alot of other people that carry that authority. The point was that the President is not the only one who is involved with classification and declassification of information.
"When I served in the military, I was entrusted with much SECRET information for which I was responsible, and I can tell you, that it was not initiated in any way by the President, nor in any way came in contact with the President."
Thanks for expressing irrelevent and obvious facts. Of the thousands and thousands of classified docs, the President only gets near a fraction of them.
That doesnt take away from the fact that this information, contained in the National Intelligence Estimate of OCt 2002, was PUBLICLY DECLASSIFIED in 2003, partly at behest of the same hypocritical Senate Democrats who are now trying to make an issue out of this.
Presidents can and do declassify information when needed.
The facts in the debate were publicly put into the New York Times by Joe Wilson and Nick Kristoff. Who authorized Joe Wilson to say that the CIA sent him on a trip? Was the CIA so stupid they didnt get him to sign a confidentiality agreement related to this junket? Or did Joe Wilson abrogate his reponsibility? When these non-facts were entered in the public sphere, without ANY Governmental authorization btw, its was more than proper for the administration to correct the record. The facts used to correct the record were declassified for additional reasons of explaining the intelligence assessments. These became further public as a result of Senate and Joint Committee investigations.
To jump on the Bush WH for 'leaking' information that was being demanded be made public is beyond absurd.
"The President as CIC can determine who fits the category, what to declassify, what to release, and to whom by executive order and the power invested in him by the constitution."
Well state.
It's funny how some people dont understand what "Commander-in-Chief" means.
To jump on the Bush WH for 'leaking' information that was being demanded be made public is beyond absurd.
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Certainly was...but the President and his assigns sadly are up against a corrupt and lying MSM, which will and does deliberately distort reality which is promptly swallowed by the ignorant public. They need to immediately counter this type of crap with FACTS and hard information that shows the spin for what it is. Unfortunately this White House has a "strength of communication" problem that has been very obvious since day one. They don't fight hard, as they should against the MSM.
A distinction clearly ignored by the 'Old Grey Lady'. They want to 'GET' this President so much, that they'll fudge any detail they can to make it sound bad for him.
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