Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (326542)	2/20/2007 10:31:06 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576082

White House hates leaks, except when it doesn't Tue Feb 20, 6:53 AM ET "That is not the way this White House operates. The president expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No one would be authorized to do such a thing." - Then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan, Sept. 29, 2003, on the Valerie Plame leak. If there's one thing members of the Bush administration say they don't like, it's leaks. President Bush has at various times denounced leaks as "unacceptable" and "shameful." Vice President Cheney called one unauthorized disclosure "a disgrace." And if there's one thing the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has shown, it's that people at the highest levels of the administration leak when it suits their strategic purposes. Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with an investigation into the outing of former CIA operative Valerie Plame. So, in an effort to discredit her husband, Joe Wilson (news, bio, voting record), after he accused the administration of twisting pre-war intelligence about Iraq, who leaked her affiliation? Turns out it was just about everybody, according to testimony at Libby's trial, which goes to closing arguments today. No fewer than four top officials - Libby, White House aide Karl Rove, former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage and former press secretary Ari Fleischer - were cited by at least one reporter under oath as a source of the information. That's quite a roster for an administration that purportedly detests leaks and has mounted aggressive Justice Department investigations to track down suspected leakers. A former press aide testified that Cheney's office was consumed with using leaks to cultivate favorable coverage. According to Libby's grand jury testimony, President Bush himself authorized selective leaks of a classified intelligence report in an effort to counter Wilson, who challenged an administration assertion that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium in the African nation of Niger. So all those angry protests about leaks from Bush and others now look more like selective, manufactured outrage than the genuine article. Like other administrations before it, this one leaks when it wants to. It uses leaks to manipulate public opinion, undermine critics and punish or reward individual reporters. Not much new there. What makes Libby's leak stand out is it turned into a federal case, and a curious one at that. It has been less about an underlying crime than an alleged cover-up. It has not made the administration or the press look particularly good. And it has been received by the public with a deafening yawn. The sad thing is, it was all so avoidable. Administration officials could have gone on the record to rebut Wilson's charges - some of which were off base. Instead, they chose the anonymous smear route. In the process, they unwittingly exposed both a CIA officer and their own hypocrisy.