To Define a Leak

While the lib media drool over the revelation that President Bush OK'ed the disclosure of intelligence on Iraq, the Dems drone on about a Culture of Corruption, and Leftists whip themselves into a frenzy over the story, I've been unable to understand the substance of the outrage and uproar.

Why? Simple.

There is no substance to it.

Andrew McCarthy sums the issue up nicely.

The more one hears about Scooter Libby’s being authorized to “leak” information from the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the more this is revealed as a bogus kerfuffle, manufactured by the press — which should be ashamed of itself, since this kind of “leaking” is the media’s stock in trade.

If the president decides to make information public, it is public — no matter how classified it was before, and no matter who in the government thinks the publicizing of it is a bone-headed move. The president gets to do that — and that’s part of why it matters who the president is.

Classified information belongs to the executive branch. Under the Constitution, the executive power is vested in a single official, the president. As Justice Scalia pointed out in his classic dissent in Morrison v. Olson, this does not mean some of the executive power; it means all of the executive power. The president can make a bad de-classification decision, but it is his decision to make. (In this case, it happens to have been a good decision, made to balance the misinformation put into the public domain by Joseph Wilson and others trying to mislead the public about Iraq’s nuclear intentions.)

What is being talked about in connection with Libby and the NIE was a “leak” not because it was classified. It was a “leak” (a) because the information was not previously public (which does not necessarily have anything to do with whether it was previously classified — the executive branch has lots of non-public information that is not classified); and (b) because it was not made generally available, but was disclosed to a particular reporter. This happens every day — if it did not, your morning newspaper would be very thin.

Administrations leak — or, better, disclose — sensitive information in response to political conditions. All presidents do it, and there is nothing wrong with this. In fact, it is hilarious to hear the media, which constantly carps about government secrecy, now complaining about government disclosures.

McCarthy provides an example of how the press dealt with Clinton's leak after he bombed the al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan.

He writes that Clinton had intelligence officials give information to the press in order to counter the political fallout because he "had taken out a mere aspirin factory, Sudan was not a threat to us, it was a gratuitous act of American aggression, etc."

Did the media go nuts about Clinton's leak?

Of course not.

McCarthy puts it in perspective:

The press was not very supportive of the Sudan bombing — it was, after all, a use of American military power. But they liked Clinton, so the selective disclosure of previously classified information by Clinton officials was treated matter-of-factly — as it should have been. The story was about the information, not the leak.

To the contrary, they abhor Bush, so the Libby story is about the leak — not the NIE information. That information, of course, puts Iraq operations — which the media also oppose — in more accurate context. Obviously, if your champion is Joseph Wilson, you’d much rather be talking about leaks than substance.

That’s the way the game is played now — and it stinks.

I agree.

Since this stupid Valerie Plame stuff is back in the limelight AGAIN, let's be clear.

PLAME COULDN'T BE OUTED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION BECAUSE SHE WAS NOT A COVERT OPERATIVE. IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO LEAK HER IDENTITY.

IMPOSSIBLE.

Read Mark Levin's article, "Valerie’s No Victim."

Read about Jamie Gangel's interview with Joe Wilson.

Wilson lied then and I assume he will do the same on This Week.