When the news broke that it turned out President George W. Bush himself had secretly authorized leaking some classified information to the press, many Americans thought there was a contradiction.
They could have SWORN they heard Bush say his administration would relentlessly hunt down and prosecute leakers. And perhaps the President was hunting for ALL leakers within his administration just as intensely as O.J. Simpson is hunting for his wife’s real killer.
So yesterday the White House put the country straight: there was no flip flop or contradiction after all:
The White House on Friday rejected suggestions that President Bush contradicted himself by repeatedly railing against leaks of classified information even though he had approved the release of classified information to bolster the U.S. case for the Iraq war in 2003.
After all, what could be contradictory about that? AND:
Documents released this week by prosecutors in a CIA leak case contained an assertion by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s former chief of staff, that Bush approved the release of information from a classified national intelligence estimate in 2003.
The White House has not challenged the statements in the court documents.
But White House spokesman Scott McClellan argued Friday that the president staunchly opposes releasing classified information that could affect U.S. security. And he pointed out that the president reserves the right to declassify material.
Looking at the specific 2003 case, McClellan said, “Because of the public debate that was going on and some of the wild accusations that were flying around at the time, we felt it was very much in the public interest that what information could be declassified be declassified, and that’s exactly what we did.”
But the court documents show that Bush approved the release of the information 10 days before the White House said the information was declassified.
Declassified, deschmassified. He’s President so he can do what he wants (we just learned, for instance, that he also has the power to do domestic surveillance, too, according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales this week). Isn’t that what democracy is all about? MORE:
The information was released on July 8, 2003 according to the documents.
On July 18 of that year, McClellan told reporters “this information was just, as of today, officially declassified.”
Asked repeatedly about the issue Friday, McClellan said he would not back down from statements he made at the time but also said he would look in to the time frame.
He added, “I think what I was referring to is the fact that that was when it was made available to the public.”
What does all of this mean?
It seems George Bush may have now truly reached the national “tipping point.” Too much video and audio is in existence that documents what he previously said in public — and how it’s seemingly at variance with what appears to have been done behind-the-scenes. Americans often put up with rogue-ish politicos who don’t always level with them but there’s a certain point where it crosses the line. Are we at that point now?
With polls showing Bush’s job approval ratings going down so far that any minute he’ll gush oil, this administration is now facing a credibility crisis perhaps unparalleled in American political history.
Credibility problems are usually associated with one or two key issues: Lyndon Johnson had Vietnam; Richard Nixon had Watergate; Bill Clinton had Monica Lewinsky (or was it the other way around?). But seldom have Americans experienced an administration that seems to suffer a credibility crisis of the month (or week) on so many fronts.
Some supporters call it a wartime administration, or an anti-terrorism administration.
But more accurately it’s the “it all depends on what ‘is’ is” administration, far more inclined to defend itself on hair-splitting legalistic definitions than the Clinton administration, supremely able to give steadfast assurances on an issue (wiretaps are only being used abroad) and then quickly change it (suggestions that the President can now do what he wants with domestic surveillance as well) without batting a collective eyelash.
The President’s hardcore supporters may be thinning in ranks but they still loyally hold the line in columns, on some weblogs and on rage-filled radio and cable talk shows. They vigorously defend his position and attack or try to neutralize those who dare criticize it.
But the legions of those criticizing the administration are steadily growing — and the press the administration is receiving is nothing less than terrible. Why? It’s not a grand plot by a monolithic international news media (which does not exist, by the way); it’s because the administration is being caught too often with its hand in the cookie jar after loudly insisting it hasn’t been taking any cookies and that someone else has been filching them.
The White House on Friday appeared to confirm that President Bush had authorized a leak of classified information about pre-Iraq war intelligence, describing the release of such information as beneficial for the “public interest.”
In other words: a “whistle blower” with unflattering information that’s leaked is a traitor, a criminal, and belongs in jail, but a President with information he wants to get across can leak it and it’s OK because it’s flattering and it’s in the national interest for the public to get classified information that’s flattering to the President.
It all depends on what leak leaks…
The AP:
US President George W Bush insists a president “better mean what he says.” Those words could return to haunt him.
After long denouncing leaks of all kinds, Bush is confronted with a statement, unchallenged by his aides, that he authorized a leak of classified material to undermine a critic of the Iraq war.
The allegation in the CIA leak case threatens the credibility of a president already falling in the polls, and it gives Democrats fresh material to accuse him of hypocrisy.
“In politics, what gets bad gets worse,” said Republican strategist Ed Rogers. “And we’ve been on a bad roll for quite some time. We’re in an environment now where every mistake is a metaphor.”
Increasingly, many Americans are beginning to conclude that Bush has less a sense of Presidential Stewardship and more a sense of Divine Right: if he wants to do something he can; if his gut tells him it’s the right thing, it is.
“Tipping point” and “hubris” all suggest the same thing: a highly unflattering perception of Bush is now catching up with him in a rapidly solidifying national collective wisdom shared by all but his most lockstep defenders.
The New York Times:
For months, Mr. Bush and his top aides have campaigned against leaks of classified information as a danger to the nation and as criminal acts. A Washington Post report on secret overseas jails run by the C.I.A. and a New York Times report on domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency have led to criminal investigations, and scores of intelligence officers have been ordered to take polygraph tests.
In that context, the report that the president was himself approving a leak may do serious political damage, said Mr. Shenkman, who has a blog on presidential politics. “It does give the public such a powerful example of hypocrisy that I think it might linger for a while,” he said.
Scott McClellan, the president’s spokesman, disputed the charge of a double standard on leaks. “There is a difference between declassifying information in the national interest and the unauthorized disclosure” of national security information, Mr. McClellan said Friday. Of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, part of which Mr. Libby shared with Judith Miller, then a Times reporter, Mr. McClellan said, “There was nothing in there that would compromise national security.”
Mr. McClellan’s tone contrasted sharply with that of administration officials after the N.S.A. story broke in December. Mr. Bush told a news conference at the time: “My personal opinion is it was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war. The fact that we’re discussing this program is helping the enemy.”
The Telegraph‘s report is one of the most blunt:
Embattled White House officials last night backed away from President George W Bush’s longstanding total public opposition to leaks yesterday, saying instead that he would never authorise a leak that would endanger national security.
It came at the end of another bad week for Mr Bush, in which two of his most senior aides, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, and Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, clashed publicly.
To the delight of Democrats, the White House did not dispute the testimony by Vice- President Dick Cheney’s former chief-of-staff, Lewis Libby, that Mr Bush authorised him to disclose parts of a pre-war intelligence report on Iraq in 2003. This threatens serious damage to Mr Bush’s integrity because he came into office vowing to run a leak-free administration.
Appearing to redefine Mr Bush’s previous blanket opposition to leaks, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, suggested that there was a difference between “helpful” disclosures and leaks of “sensitive” information. “The president would never authorise disclosure of information that could compromise our nation’s security,” he said. “The president believes the leaking of classified information is a very serious matter.”
A recent poll showed that only about 8 percent of Democrats approve of the job Bush is doing. This makes him a President with some of the thinnest national support ever in American history. Independent voters are deserting him. What’ll be the impact of this leak and the political macarena now underway to try and justify his earlier statements about leakers? Is any of it likely to build — or hold onto — eroding national support?
While refusing to comment on the specific leak, the White House appeared set on trying to justify Mr Bush’s actions by arguing that any information he released had already been declassified and was in the public interest.
Listen carefully. Can’t you Jiminy Cricket singing “When You Wish Upon A Star”?
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan writes:
The bottom line is that the president clearly used his prerogative to classify and declassify intelligence data to leak selectively to the press to give a misleading notion of what his own government believed about Saddam’s WMDs before the war. He was personally involved; and he tasked his veep to coordinate it. The most plausible explanation is that the president believes grave national security prerogatives can be used for political purposes and/or that he had something embarrassing to hide. Bottom bottom line: we can’t trust him to be fully honest with us on one of the bases on which he led us to war. That matters, doesn’t it?
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.