Update: The Bush Meltdown Continues

Reaction has come fast and furious -- and not so furious -- over the disclosure that King George, who has repeatedly said that leaks to the news media are a threat to national security, was the key leaker in the Wilson-Plame case.

First, let's recall what the king said on October 7, 2003, as the Wilson-Plame scandal began getting traction with the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate who in the White House leaked information from a then-classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq to a New York Times reporter:

There's a lot of leaking in Washington, D.C. It's a town famous for it. This investigation in finding the truth, it will not only hold someone to account who should not have leaked — and this is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action, but also hopefully will help set a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop, as well. And so I look forward to finding the truth.

Got that? The Leader of the Free World looked forward to finding the truth.

The following reaction roundup is brought to you on the day when the president and Republican Party hit new lows in the Associated Press-Ipsos Poll.

Andrew Sullivan opines at The Daily Dish:

The president's self-defense at this point must be that if he, the president, decides to leak classified information, like the NIE assessment, then, by definition, it isn't a classified leak. POTUS gets to decide what is and isn't classified. And so he cannot commit the wrong or crime he decries in others. He can break no secrets because the secrets are his to break. He is above the law because, in terms of executive privilege, he is the law.

Austin Bay carries the administration's water at Austin Bay Blog:

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 entire flap relies on mixing terms and “misunderstanding by innuendo” — a technique of demagoguery, not journalism. The flap is yet more evidence that the national press is more interested in playing “gotcha” with the Bush Administration than reporting the news.

Presidents and vice-presidents can declassify information based on their own good (or bad) judgment. That is a privilege and responsibility of the office. Their authority is near-absolute. Disseminating unclassified information isn’t a crime — no matter the technique used. The information can be disseminated at a press conference, in a press release, in a speech, or — yes– via leak.

James Sterngold states the obvious in the San Francisco Chronicle:

[The disclosures] appear to show Bush doing something he has repeatedly decried: trying to manipulate public opinion by quietly leaking information to the press behind a veil of anonymity.

David Wallechinsky puts things in perspective at Huffington Post:

Thursday, April 6, 2006, was certainly an unusual day for news. First we learned that, according to the National Geographic Society, Judas, for the good of the cause, was asked to take the rap for causing Jesus’ death. Then we learned that, almost 2000 years later, Scooter Libby, for the good of the cause, was asked to take the rap for exposing the name of a covert CIA agent.

Judas agreed to be the fall guy, and his reputation has been sullied ever since. However, from the point of view of selling the cause, it worked. There are now more than two billion Christians in the world. Scooter Libby has decided not to take the rap. No doubt he concluded that the cause for which he was being asked to be the fall guy, President Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, did not come close to matching the worthiness of Christianity. Who can blame him?

"Danny" lets 'er rip on a Chicago Tribune reader forum:

We're not going to impeach this guy unless we find out that he did something really awful. I mean, if there was an intern and a blue dress, well then, we'd be in business! But this stuff about leaks and treason and what not? During wartime? No big deal at all!

Oh, my poor misguided country, I can't wait to get you back.

Byron York parses in the conservative National Review Online:

I confess to being a little baffled by the excitement over the revelation. . . . First of all, it should be made clear -- as it has not been in some discussions -- that Fitzgerald does not say that Bush authorized Libby to say anything about Valerie Plame. . . .

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. In the Plame case, there has been much discussion of the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. Would anyone argue that this disclosure was unauthorized?

Kevin Drum picks at the president's cherry picking at Washington Monthly:

[N]ational security is different because the president controls all the information. If George Bush spins the truth about Social Security reform, there are dozens of analysts with access to the numbers who can spin back. When it comes to national security, though, the president holds all the cards. If we have a president willing to cherry pick intelligence and release only the parts that support his case, there's no one who can fight back.

Larry Johnson is cinematic at TPM Cafe:

If you saw Cameron's version of "Titantic," I am sure you recall the scene just after the ship disappeared below the surface and the heroine, Rose, was grabbed and forced underwater by another passenger who couldn't swim. Today, Scooter Libby was that passenger and George W. Bush is Rose. Only in this case, there is nothing heroic about George W. Bush. In fact, Bush is a coward.

Glenn Greenwald puzzles at legal-oriented Unclaimed Territory:

So let's assume, for the moment, that Libby's testimony is accurate. That would mean that the President, instead of following normal declassification procedures and publicly releasing a redacted version of the NIE, authorized an aide to present a cherry-picked and manipulated version of that document to a friendly New York Times reporter on deep background. That aide then passed along the highly misleading information and asked that it be attributed to a "former Hill staffer." That may not be illegal, but it is sure as hell unethical. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that during this same conversation, Libby revealed the identity of an undercover CIA agent.

The conservative Weekly Standard has this to say:

(Oops! Not a peep.)

And a final thought from Yours Truly:

The justificatations of administration spokespeople and conservative pundits are pathetic. Looming over this entire sorry affair is intent. What was the president's intent in leaking classified information? To set the record straight? No. To help a reporter write an accurate story? No. His intent was to put in motion a smear campaign against a knowledgeable critic of a policy for a war that although only a few months old already was being discredited.

Rereading what I wrote yesterday, I feel even more strongly that the president's actions are nothing short of traitorous and the greatest threat to national security is George Bush himself. The man has made a mockery of the separation of powers and simply believes that he is above the law -- all laws.

'I HAVE NEVER FELT MORE ASHAMED OR FRIGHTENED'

Thing awry wrong for President Bush at one of those carefully scripted town hall meetings in GOP-friendly Charlotte, North Carolina, yesterday when Harry Taylor, a 61-year-old real estate broker, took the microphone and said:

While I listen to you talk about freedom, I see you assert your right to tap my telephone, to arrest me and hold me without charges, to try to preclude me from breathing clean air and drinking clean water. I have never felt more ashamed of nor more frightened by my leadership in Washington.

To the president's credit, he silenced people in the audience who had begun booing Taylor and let him finish.

THE MESS AT DHS

You know that things have gotten really bad when conservative maven Michelle Malkin unloads bigtime on the administration, this time over the sorry state of the Department of Homeland Security.

Malkin fulminates that:

The arrest of Department of Homeland Security spokesman Brian J. Doyle on felony charges of sexually preying on a undercover cop posing as a 14-year-old girl this week is just the latest debacle for the bureaucratic behemoth.

I dealt with Doyle a few times while reporting on the incompetence of leaders at the Federal Air Marshals Service over the past couple of years. He was a standard-issue, CYA mouthpiece. And as disgusted rank-and-file employees of the agency will tell you, DHS is full of them.

The mess at DHS stands as Towering Reason Number One to oppose the Senate's border security sellout. For the last four years, I've reported repeatedly on the immigration bureaucracy's inability to enforce our laws and protect the American public--let alone protect its own employees and police itself.

Leadership positions under the Bush administration's pre-9/11 INS and post-9/11 DHS have been filled by cronies with little or no experience in immigration law and immigration enforcement.

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