The Latest Sutton Impact + More Leak Soup

Ahh, but this helps to soothe my Saturday morning--the latest cartoon from FotF Ward Sutton, found over at the Village Voice.

Speaking of our Leaker in Chief, the AP and Knight Ridder both have rather scathing articles out about this past week's revelation, via Scooter Libby's federal grand jury testimony, that President Bush authorized him to leak classified information to bolster the administration's reasoning for going to war against Iraq and to fend off accusations from Joseph Wilson that it had manipulated intelligence to make its case.

First up is Knight-Ridder:

The revelation that President Bush authorized former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to divulge classified information about Iraq fits a pattern of selective leaks of secret intelligence to further the administration's political agenda.

Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials have reacted angrily at unauthorized leaks, such as the exposure of a domestic wiretapping program and a network of secret CIA prisons, both of which are now the subject of far-reaching investigations.

But secret information that supports their policies, particularly about the Iraq war, has surfaced everywhere from the U.N. Security Council to major newspapers and magazines. Much of the information that the administration leaked or declassified, however, has proved to be incomplete, exaggerated, incorrect or fabricated.

[...]

[W]hen leaks of classified information help make the White House's case, officials haven't always complained.

In November 2003, the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard published highly classified raw intelligence purporting to a show a link between Saddam and al-Qaida.

The Pentagon disavowed the report. But in early January 2004, Cheney told the Rocky Mountain News newspaper that the magazine report was the "best source of information" about the Saddam/al-Qaida connection. That connection has never been proved.

Next, the AP (via Seattle P-I):

President 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 an Iraq war critic.

[...]

As president, Bush has wide latitude to declassify material. And there was nothing in the legal papers filed by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to suggest Bush or Cheney did anything illegal, or had specifically authorized Libby to identify Plame.

Still, the report put Bush and Cheney at the center of the alleged administration effort to leak classified material to bolster its case for invading Iraq and to discredit war critics.

Bush often has denounced leaks and pledged to punish the leakers. He has expressed pride in a disciplined White House where leaks are infrequent.

"It was a shameful act for someone to disclose this very important program in a time of war," he told a news conference last Dec. 19, speaking of the leaking of the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program.

And finally, via Atrios (via a Poynter online fourm) we find where President Bush got the idea for this whole charade in the first place:

From DAN BUCK: Is nothing sacred? George W. Bush plagiarized an episode of the 1980s BBC comedy "Yes, Minister." As fans of that Brit-com will recall, Prime Minister Jim Hacker ordered an investigation of a government leak, demanding that if found the leaker be tossed in jail. After the usual expensive, lengthy inquiry, his staff reported back -- we've found him. Well who is he, the PM asked? It's you, Prime Minister. (Dialogue from memory.)

P.S. OK, maybe it wasn't plagiarism, it was an homage.

I've always loved Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister series (the titles refer to British government, not religious, minister), which featured fantastically sharp and circuitous comedy writing and wonderfully realized performances from Paul Eddington (as the minister in question; he also was featured in another of my youthful faves, Good Neighbors--originally called The Good Life in the UK) and the late, great Nigel Hawthorne (as the assistant who really controls the minister). Though I'm not usually a fan of remakes, maybe, it's time for a BushCo-era update, centered on US politics and not the UK?