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Originally Posted by scaeagles
That I will agree with. He should have come out and just told the info, not done a back channel. Hypocritical, yes. Illegal, no. Politically motivated, yes. Uncommon, no.
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I agree with this. Bush can make de-classify any classified information he desires. There's a formal procedure which he didn't follow, and it was done for purely political motives ... but it's not illegal and it's not unique.
It
is hypocritical and Bush is taking a bit of heat for it. Not only because it looks so craven ... but because, for the first time, Bush is implicated in the chain of events that led to the outting of Valerie Plame.
It is believed that Libby leaked Plame's identity to Judith Miller of the NY Times during the same conversations that he leaked the information declassified by the President, under the President's order to leak the information. And while there is no testimony yet known that Bush specifically ordered the leak of Plame's identity ... Bush is now knee-deep in this mess - since the order to leak was a direct effort to defend the Adminstration against the published allegations of Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband.
If the ordered de-classification leak were not directly tied to discrediting Wilson, Bush would have some plausable deniability. But now that grand jury testimony links Bush to the defense-manuever leak that also resulted in revealing the identity of an undercover CIA operative, this treasonous mess is lapping at the president's feet ... any may yet pull him under.