Leaker In Chief
“When The President Does It, That Means It’s Not Illegal” —Richard Nixon, defending executive privilege in the 1970s
“By definition, the president cannot leak. He has the inherent authority to declassify something…. It’s like accusing a shopkeeper of shoplifting from himself.” — A “Senior Bush Official” justifying the president’s leaking of classified WMD intel to journalistic pawn Judith Miller, yesterday.
The shop the president is shoplifting from is his store of public trust.
The delicious irony of all of this, of course, is that to defend against Joseph Wilson’s charges that the administration cherry-picked intelligence to build a case for war, Bush himself cherry-picked more intelligence to leak to the media and spin the public. That’s not presidential; that’s pathological.
Update: Check this video of Bush repeatedly condemning the leak of sensitive information.