George W. Bush: Leaker In Chief by Bill Press

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George W. Bush: Leaker In Chief
April 13, 2006
http://billpress.com/columns.html



In a rare departure, Bush does not deny ordering the leak of classified information, but he insists he was only acting in the public interest. Questions were being raised about his yellowcake assertion, notably by Ambassador Joseph Wilson. So Bush said he wanted people to “know the truth.” Or, as he explained to students at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: “I thought it was important for people to get a better sense of why I was saying what I was saying.”

In other words, in order to tell the truth, he told a lie. If Bush had really wanted us to know the truth, he would have released the entire NIE — which contained doubts expressed by many in the Pentagon and CIA about Iraq’s rumored buying of nuclear materials in Africa. Bush didn’t want us to know, for example, of the conclusion reached by the National Intelligence Council after investigating the matter: “The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest.” Instead, he ordered the selective leaking of information that would help make his case for war. His motive was not to tell the truth, but to mislead the American people into backing the war in Iraq.

Nor was President Bush acting in the public interest. He was simply trying to crush one of his chief, and most effective, critics. According to Special Counsel Fitzgerald, an op-ed piece by Ambassador Wilson — in which he accused Bush of relying on forged documents when he included Iraq’s nuclear ties with Niger in the State of the Union — was “viewed as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president and the president on a matter of signal importance.”

Add it all up. What does it mean? It means the president knew what he was saying was not true, but said it anyway. It means the president deliberately lied to the American people. It means the president also instructed his staff to lie. It means the president was willing to do anything, even break the law and blow the cover of an undercover CIA agent, in order to build support for his unnecessary, unwise and unwinnable war.

If all that doesn’t add up to an impeachable offense, I don’t know what does.

[JohnnyRingo]

1. Bill Press is great

That last paragraph, the one that begins "add it all up", says it all.
Buxh was desperate to invade a country for reasons other than national security.

Just explaining it all off with some Hannity rationalization doesn't hold up. Anyone who still backs him on this isn't a patriot or a just a warhawk...they're a fool who's helping undermine everything that America stands for. In other words, a loyal Republican.

My question to the standard reply that "It's not a leak if the president does it" is "Why then did he not admit the leak when he was asked repeatedly about it?"

The answer is, obviously, that the entire war was based on lies.
"Liar in Chief" is more a accurate description. Bill Press is just being polite.

Thanx for posting his column.