How Does The President Authorize A Leak?
Sigh...
As I pointed out yesterday, how exactly does the President - commander-in-chief of the military and the author, by executive order, of the rules concerning the classification and declassification of national security information - authorize a "leak."
The President has the authority to declassify national security information unilaterally and without input from other branches of government. Given that authority, if the President authorizes someone to release national security information to the media it is, by definition, not a "leak" so much as an authorized release of information.
The liberal/media outrage over this is just plain silly. They're basically saying "How dare the President use his authority to declassify intelligence to refute critics of his policies!"
The left/media has been dreaming about a connection between the Plame leak and the President for so long now that it seems as though they are going to run as many headlines and articles with "Bush" and "leak" in them as they can, despite the fact that this isn't a "leak" and it has nothing to do with Plame other than the fact that it came out during in Court during Libby's trial.
As I pointed out yesterday, how exactly does the President - commander-in-chief of the military and the author, by executive order, of the rules concerning the classification and declassification of national security information - authorize a "leak."
The President has the authority to declassify national security information unilaterally and without input from other branches of government. Given that authority, if the President authorizes someone to release national security information to the media it is, by definition, not a "leak" so much as an authorized release of information.
The liberal/media outrage over this is just plain silly. They're basically saying "How dare the President use his authority to declassify intelligence to refute critics of his policies!"
The left/media has been dreaming about a connection between the Plame leak and the President for so long now that it seems as though they are going to run as many headlines and articles with "Bush" and "leak" in them as they can, despite the fact that this isn't a "leak" and it has nothing to do with Plame other than the fact that it came out during in Court during Libby's trial.
