CHERRY PICKING THE TRUTH....It turns out Andrew Sullivan had already written my previous post about presidential leaking an hour before I did. That's what I get for being on West Coast time. Here's his version:
In this case, we're...talking about the following set of circumstances. A president is challenged in his public account of pre-war intelligence. The president authorizes a selective leak of classified information to rebut the challenge. He selects only those parts of the classified information that supports his case, and omits the rest that actually show parts of the government disputing his case. He authorizes the veep to authorize Libby to give the selected information to a pliant reporter for the New York Times. Meanwhile, his public statements reiterate an abhorrence of all unauthorized disclosure of classified information....
Scott McClellan, it turns out, not only agrees, but thinks this is just fine:
The unauthorized disclosure of classified information relating to a program like the terrorist surveillance program is harmful to our nation's security....So there's a distinction...between declassifying information that is in the public interest and the unauthorized disclosure of classified information that could compromise our nation's security.
