The Eclipse of Reason

The administration has refused to confirm Scooter's assertion that the President authorized leaking classified information in order to discredit Joe Wilson.

Until now.

The NYT is reporting tomorrow that a senior administration source has confirmed that Bush did in fact okay leaking part of the National Intelligence Estimate to Judy Miller. I guess this leak about a leak is meant to reinforce the claim that the President wasn’t breaking the law.

So…he wasn’t breaking the law, but he did say it was ok to leak part of a highly classified report that was already being disputed by every intelligence agency in Washington—even the one that wrote it in the first place. And then he lied repeatedly about knowing anything about any leaks, and then he lied about how much he hates leaks, and then he continued to repeat the information even though he knew it was false.

And now the President is admitting that he was trying to discredit Wilson--who was telling the truth!

This is awfully close to an admission that there was a senior level conspiracy to discredit Joseph Wilson through the use of classified sources (which Patrick Fitzgerald thought might have been happening all along). That might not be illegal. But...If the next revelation is that Bush and/or Cheney sought to discredit Wilson by not only leaking parts of the NIE, but also by leaking the idenity of an undercover CIA agent (Valerie Wilson, his wife) then that does turn into criminal conspiracy.

# posted by rsantos @ 10:15 PM