SubscribeTheir argument will be that if Bush authorized the info to be released, it's no longer classified, so no law has been broken.
Can we please have endless network repetition of the 'I did not have sex with that woman' clip juxtaposed with the 'If anyone in my administration leaked this they will be fired' clip?
dios, how does this not advance the ball? Previously, Bush was outraged at the leak and, as has been said in this thread already by p3t3, wasted tax dollars on an investigation. Not to mention withholding the truth from the American people while projecting faux outrage at the security breach.The spin on this one is that the NIE leak and the Plame leak are separate. He only technically promised to fire people responsible for the Plame leak. If some individuals foolishly believed that the President wasn't authorizing the leakage of OTHER classified information to the Times, well, they're just unrealistic. You have to break the rules sometimes to advance the cause of freedom. 9/11 changed everything.
"I want Congress to hear loud and clear it is unacceptable behavior to leak classified information when we have troops at risk," Bush said during an event at the White House Rose Garden.In October 2001, President Bush felt that "classified information must be held dear" and was upset with some members of pissed off Congress by restricting the disclosure of classified information to "the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate."
...
"If you receive a briefing of classified information, you have a responsibility, and some members did not accept that responsibility," Bush said. "It is a serious matter, very serious, that people in positions of responsibility understand that they have a responsibility to people who are being put in harm's way.
But on the issue of whether the identity of a secret agent was disclosed in violation of the Covert Agent Identity Act, this doesn't tell us anything.
Mr. Bush's alleged instruction to release the conclusions of the intelligence estimate appears to have been squarely within his authority and Mr. Fitzgerald makes no argument that it was illegal. While Mr. Libby said he gave that information "exclusively" to the Times reporter at their breakfast meeting at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, many of the findings of the estimate were formally declassified and discussed at a White House press briefing ten days later, on July 18, 2003.The declassification was properly made after the leak - unless one buys the principle that what George Bush says is legal, is legal.
Joe Wilson, by writing the op-ed, was trying to position himself in an uncriticizeable position.I don't get this jump, b_thinky. Are you saying that writing op-ed pieces is 'attemptint to position one's self in an uncriticizeable position?' Or are you suggesting hat there was something special about Wilson's op-ed piece that makes him a fucking ass?
Would I be wrong to look at this story without wondering why there is not any mention of Republican Man-Whore Prostitutes being involved
Oh, but kirkaracha, Gannon/Guckert was doing just so much for Scott McClellan and Bush.
And any minute now, Alberto Gonzales or some other hired umpire will be trotted out to declare that, in fact, if the President wants to declassify something, all he has to do is pick up a telephone and start blabbing about it
McClellan said the release of the declassified information was very different from what he called the potentially damaging leak of information about Bush's domestic eavesdropping program which aims to track phone calls and e-mails in the United States to suspected al Qaeda contacts abroad.And there we have a perfect example of the whistleblower vs. judgement call divide. It's nice to have a theory confirmed.
Frost: "So...what...you're saying is that there are certain situations...where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal."
Nixon: "Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."
Frost: "By definition."
Nixon: "Exactly, exactly. If the president, for example, approves something because of the national security...then the president's decision in that instance is one that enables those who carry it out to carry it out without violating a law."
Genius, if the president releases info, its no longer a leak.There is a difference, though, between 'releasing information' and 'telling a subordinate to give cherry-picked snippets of a national security document to a friendly reporter and attributing it to a nonexistant person, just after denying less friendly reporters access to the same information because you say it's classified.'
Verb, the President DECIDES what is classified; can DECIDE to declassify something; and can do so to correct a public misconception.Yes. It is within his legal rights, without question. That's what I've been saying from early on in this thread. I'm more curious whether the ability to selectively classify, declassify, reclassify, in whole or part, with or without context, with or without informing other branches of government or the public, is a good thing or something that has too great a potential for misuse. As I said, recognizing the corrupting potential of power and the danger of 'loopholes' that can be abused by the unscrupulous is one of the fundamental convictions of genuine conservatism. I have to wonder whether you bothered reading anything I've written, or simply decided that anyone who uses words like 'ethics' has to be a dirty lib.
The real issue here is that certain people don't like Bush, and so his activities are given an evil spin. And by the way, I thought the Bush Administration was too secretive and hid everything....Again, you're not bothering to read what I am typing. I'm not particularly shocked, but please do try. MetaFilter is certainly a liberal-leaning place on the net, and you disagree with the consensus opinion here like clockwork, but your response to disagreement seems to be putting LESS work into careful thought and discussion rather than MORE. It's a pity.
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posted by Space Coyote at 9:21 AM on April 6, 2006