It’s been a few days since the Scooter [tag]Libby[/tag] bombshell revealed that the president himself authorized the [tag]leak[/tag] of [tag]classified[/tag] information as part of a political pushback. It was easy to tell that this was a difficult scandal for the [tag]Bush[/tag] [tag]White House[/tag] because they struggled to come up with a coherent explanation for the president’s conduct.
Now the Bush gang seems to have stumbled upon a new favorite argument: Bush authorized the leak, but didn’t order it.
A senior administration official confirmed for the first time on Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein.
But the official said that Mr. Bush did not designate Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., or anyone else, to release the information to reporters.
The statement by the official came after the White House had declined to confirm, for three days, Mr. Libby’s grand jury testimony that he had been told by Mr. Cheney that Mr. Bush had authorized the disclosure.
The NYT added that this line of argument suggests Bush had a “peripheral role” in the release of classified information. He engaged in a little automatic declassification, but didn’t order anyone to leak materials to the media. The Times said this new argument characterizes Bush as “uninformed” about the leak scheme, including the fact an effort was underway to “dispatch Mr. Libby to discuss the estimate with reporters.”
The implication of the article is that this is all Cheney’s fault. Libby got the go-ahead from the VP on leaking, Libby initially balked, and Cheney told him it was all kosher because Bush gave the green light. Under this scenario, however, Bush was out of the loop — he declassified Iraq intelligence, but had no idea his VP and top aides would run around leaking the information.
At a minimum, I give the White House bonus points for creativity.
In related news, in case you missed it yesterday, the New York Times also reported that the Iraq-related intelligence that the White House was leaking before the war was, of course, wrong — and the Bush gang knew it. For example, the article notes that Cheney authorized Libby to tell reporters that “a key judgment of the N.I.E. held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.” It was not one of the “key judgments” of the document, as Cheney and Libby were well aware.
In other words, they were [tag]lying[/tag]. I’m sure this comes as a huge shock … to absolutely no one.