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Sunday, April 09, 2006

Not Only Good, but Legal

The Washington Post editorial board comes this Sunday to the defense of the Bush administration, for “leaking” a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago: “A Good Leak”.

It is, as Scott Johnson argued to some chortles from Arianna Huffington on CNN last evening, simply amazing that the Plame Game is back in the news. It comes as a surprise chiefly—and here is where the WaPo’s headline is misleading—because it is impossible for the President of the United States to promulgate an illegal leak. And that, in turn, is because the president has the inherent power to declassify. When Joe Wilson’s misleading opposite-editorial appeared in the New York Times unchallenged, the White House communications office, with the president’s permission, presumably went ahead and released an intelligence backgrounder on Iraq as a retort. It is as simple as that, and when even a CNN anchor has to tell Huffington that “all administrations do this,” that should be a signal that the Plame Game, baring any true revelations from Patrick Fitzgerald, is over.

HEH: The Left-Coaster is outraged at the Post’s defection: “Clearly, the editor hasn’t read his own paper and should be fired.” Oh, clearly.

Posted on April 9, 2006 05:40 PM. Permalink