The hyperbolic treatment of the portion of Patrick Fitzgerald’s response to Libby’s motion to compel in which a Presidential declassification of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to explain the truth to reporters has morphed into a Presidential leak against a “whistleblower” has been well-treated by others. But to the contention that private disclosures to reporters were not the way—a press conference should have been used, Cecil Turner, a poster at Just One Minute, offers the best, most definitive response. The Administration repeatedly tries to clear the record, and the media ignored those efforts, continuing (some to this day) to print Wilson’s lies as truth:
The Administration corrected the record, repeatedly, through several conduits:
Indeed.
Read the whole thing.
What still amazes me is how many in the media are more than willing to use secret and anonymous sources illegally leaking information to bash the President (see the NSA "domestic spying" and CIA "secret prisons" stories), yet when the President attempts to push back against critics of his policies by using these same conduits, albeit with information that's authorized for release, you'd think he just declared himself a dictator or something.