We have to give Howie his due. Media Notes is right on the money this morning. Kurtz does an excellent job juxtaposing yesterday’s revelation that Scooter Libby claims he was authorized to leak the NIE with Bush’s multiple public statements that he wanted to find and fire the leaker.
… Bush is probably safe from having to fire himself, despite Scooter Libby’s accusation yesterday that the president, through Dick Cheney, had authorized him to feed classified CIA data to Judy Miller. The reason: It’s legal for the president to declassify something that otherwise would remain super-secret.
Politically, it’s a mess.
The president finds it acceptable to authorize the sharing of government secrets with a New York Times reporter when it’s advantageous to the administration? And has the vice president’s chief of staff carry it out? What else don’t we know about this case?
More Kurtzian goodness below the fold…
Kurtz even quotes Georgia10:
Georgia10 at Kos says someone ain’t leveling here:
“Did the President personally authorize the selected release of classified information meant to manipulate public opinion about Iraq? Or did Cheney lie? If Cheney corroborates Scooter Libby’s story, he implicates the President. If he denies it, he calls his former Chief of Staff a liar.
and gets in a tasty morsel of snark, pre-empting the latest Republican talking point by taking blogger Austin Bay to task.
Blogger Austin Bay begs to differ:
“The sudden press flap over Scooter Libby’s alleged ‘revelation’ that President Bush declassified intelligence information related to Iraq is silly but all too predictable.
[…]
The president wants to control the dissemination of information and has made that clear. The information released today said that what Libby leaked as declassified and authorized — but try getting that clear on a T.V. squawk show where the game is gotcha.”
So there’s no hypocrisy because Bush’s leaks are authorized and the others are unauthorized? C’mon.
Seems to me Bush’s defenders are all going legalistic on us. [Kurtz’ comment in bold.]
Kurtz even pulls out the “imagine if Bill Clinton did this” argument:
National Review’s Byron York :
“I confess to being a little baffled by the excitement. . . . As for leaking portions of the National Intelligence Estimate, yes, it was classified, although it would later be declassified. But it should be remembered that when the president decides to make something public, then it can be made public.”
That’s right, and if we had learned that Bill Clinton had leaked CIA data to Sidney Blumenthal at the New Yorker to justify the war in Bosnia, I’m sure conservatives would have yawned and said the prez was merely exercising his legal powers. [Kurtz’ comment in bold.]
With good reason, we’ve given Kurtz hell for being a bit too sympathetic with the Republican spin. But even he sees this as ridiculous. My interpretation — the press is finally going to go for the proverbial jugular.
Cross-posted on Daily Kos
