CBC News: He hates leaks, but Bush authorized one: documents — Is anyone really surprised by this? It amuses me how nothing will come of it except Libby falling on the sword.
U.S. President George Bush, who has denounced government leaks, authorized a White House official to leak U.S. intelligence about Iraqi weapons while he sought to persuade the world to support an invasion, court documents suggest.
The documents surfaced Thursday in the perjury case against Lewis (Scooter) Libby, former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Former White House aide Lewis Libby. (File photo)Libby is accused of lying to the FBI about a leak in which a columnist was told that a woman whose husband criticized
Will Libby even fall on the sword? If Bush authorized it that makes it “legal”.
It amuses me how nothing will come of it . . . .
I agree, as long as “amuses” and “sickens” are the same thing.
But we will go after a story about someone blowing the president?
> Former White House aide Lewis Libby. (File photo)
You need to refine your “cut and paste” technique…. 🙂
-Dx
You Americans are really wacky in that you get all riled up over a lie about sex but lies about wars are tolerated.
He’s falling on the sword because he’s being tried for perjury. So he might not be in trouble for disclosing the information, but he is trouble for lying about his knowledge of the source of the leak afterwords.
This whole story is a lot more complex than has been reported so far in the mainstream press. I wouldn’t get on one side of this situation this early in the case.
#3 Jeremy — “But we will go after a story about someone blowing the president? ”
Yes, just to see if he lies under oath about it.
Remember it was Whitewater. It was white but it wasn’t water 🙂
It’s pretty lame that everyone wants to jump all over Bush for this when just about every (if not every) President has leaked top secret infomation.
Why is this man pressident?
why did he get a second TERM?
John, your article titled “Death to the Crackberries” merely scuffs the surface when it comes to the insanity of corporate life in America today. I’m contracting at Microsoft right now. My supervisor sees nothing wrong with coming to work on a Tuesday and not going home until Thursday or even Friday! He consistently does this at least once a month and sometimes twice a month! And then people are surprised (at the very least) when I state I won’t become an employee at this organization. Someone needs to tell these folks what “a life” is.
I think the funniest discussions of this [predictably] on TV have been on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown. He had John Dean on — who even managed to step aside from the 14 flavors of hearsay defense Bush dittoheads will be using — but, there is testimony on the record from both Bush and Cheney which has not yet been released.
Best of all, I guess I enjoy the on-the-fly self-assigned ability of Bush to say — this is classified, now — now it’s not classified — It’s classified, again — an nauseum. Same for — no leaks allowed — go ahead and leak this — no leaks allowed until Thursday.
Cripes, even Kerry sounds like he’s found his hind legs.
#7 What is so complex about the President of the United States lying to all of America.
Does it matter that over 2,200 Americans have been killed and I don’t know how many other “allied” troops? Does it matter that tens of thousands of Americans have been maimed for life? Does it matter that tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed? Does it matter that over a hundred thousand Iraqis are maimed? Are we all just little pawns in a big game being played by the President on behalf of all the Oil and Defense interests?
Sorry, JS, but it isn’t complicated at all. All those people lost their lives for avenging Bush’s daddy.
#9 No it isn’t lame that every President has leaked secret information. In this case the President lied through his teeth that no one in the White House leaked the information and promised to fire anyone who did. The information wasn’t leaked to further the White House policy, it was leaked to cover up a deliberate lie.
You’ve already posted this. It’s not at all clear the info was classified at the time.
#9….this has nothing about the leaking of Plame’s cover. Even though the headline on the post proclaims it, it’s just not part of the story. At least not yet.
The article says Bush and Cheney authorized leaks about Iraq’s weapons. Several Presidents in the modern era have behind the scenes authorized leaks, either as trial balloons or to influence public opinion.
While I feel Bush isn’t what those of us who voted for him thought he was, and is a big disappointment.(to put it mildly). From a huge expansion of goverment, to deficits, to war, to Katrina…..this isn’t what a good conservative/libertarian had hoped for. But, don’t hang the *outing* on him until it actually happens or is proven.
You forget the President has the authority to declassify information. Hense when he said no one in the White House leaked it Yes it was not lying because it wasn’t leaked it was no longer classified. Everyone forgets the fact that she was not even a covert agent for many years before this “leak” she was no longer covered as a covert agent.
>> You forget the President has the authority to declassify information.
Not true. The declassification of information at any level must go through proper channels. The president does NOT have the authority to declassify anything he wants to declassify. This is a built in trip-wire to keep a sitting president from doing an insane act or using this kind of information for his own benefit. In reality there is very little that the president can do without proper approval, for example, he can’t just ask for the ‘football’ and launch a nuclear attack just because he feels like it… his generals actually have to agree.
There are three branches to our government, and each one is supposed to maintain control over the other. If a President wants to declassify something, he has to get approval from a special committee in Congress.
It’s surprising how little people know about the way that our government is supposed to work. Most of these rules were put inplace so there would not be a person equivalent to “King”, with uncheckable powers.
And yes, that includes ignoring standing law for expediency, convenience or lack of justification.
Um…misleading headline. The linked article doesn’t say that Bush authorized the Plame leak. In fact, the article explicity says that these new documents say nothing about the CIA agent leak.
I’m no bush defender. I’m frankly embarrassed that this man is still in power, but I still prefer to base my hysteria on the truth, and I don’t see a smoking gun here…yet.
I fixed the headline for you
Wow…what a misleading headline. The article says nothing of the sort. Putting a question mark doesn’t justify that kind of bs. You can’t criticize others for using hyperbole and lies if you do it yourself.
Awake,
You make great points…. and, yes, people in this country are educated in this country…and civics was thrown out in most school districts years and years ago. Of course they dont’ know.
If lying about a blow job is an impeachable offence… SURELY this deserves some serious congressional attention.
There are two kinds of classified material… material that is classified by Congress through statutes, and material that is classified by the executive. The later can be declassified by the Presidient at any time he deems it appropriate..
First, it’s lying under oath that was impeachable offence. Bush hasn’t been accused of this.
Awake,
If you really know how the U.S. Government is supposed to work. You will know every Branch has over stepped it’s bounds. No more so the Supreme Court. Both parties also use this to their advantage.
All of those that say this isn’t a big deal because presidents need to lie or that the president can choose to declassify need to remember that the reason this was done was to discredit Plame and by extension her husband who had learned the truth about the Nigerian documents that were forged. The administration purposefuly hid evidence that they were aware that there might not be any WMDs in Iraq.
I can’t believe that anyone could possibly think that this was allright.
The President is NOT authorized to declassify a Covert Agent.
First of all, Plame was no longer covert, and not subject to the statue. This had been well discussed in the media months ago.
Secondly, the article is talking about a document that was released before the invasion of Iraq, and has NOTHING to do with her.
Read the article.
#17 Awake
I didn’t know that as a fact. It does make sense too. Thank you for posting it.
#27 Mike
Whether or not Plame was actually covert at the time is irrelevant. The CIA thought enough about it that they complained. And the Justice Department felt enough about it that an independent Federal Prosecutor was appointed to investigate it. And a Grand Jury felt enough about it that they indicted Lewis Libby.
Second the release of her name was done to silence critics that released contrary evidence to the Bush lie about WMDs in Iraq. Thirty years ago this was called “dirty tricks” and was very frowned upon by Americans of all stripes. Today, it is called “Dirty Tricks” and still is frowned upon by Americans of all stripes.
Before anyone corrects my remark in (17), I admit that I am wrong. Apparently the President can classify and declassify any damn thing he wants to for any reason he wants to. I was mistaken.
The question of ‘appropriateness’ is very relevant. In this case, it seems that what was ‘declassified’ was only portions of a classified document, portions that only told part of a story, portions that fit the President’s previous declarations and political needs. By giving the American people only part of the story in this case, the President is guilty of intentionally misleading the American people.
And how were the portions of the document declassified? Was there a signed document formalizing the declassification, or was it just a “tell them about this stuff, it will make us sound good” conversation. In other words, what does it take to actually declassify something? If there is a formal procedure that needs to be followed, then you could argue that the information was not declassified, and that classified information was divulged without proper authority.
And divulging classified information without proper cause and authority is also known as ‘treason’.