Newsweek: Eleanor Clift Gets to the "Bottom" of "Leakgate"

Farewell, Fig Leaf
Bush called for a criminal investigation to ‘get to the bottom’ of the CIA leak scandal. It turns out he may be the bottom.
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek Updated: 2:05 p.m. ET April 7, 2006


President Bush promised to restore honor and dignity to the White House. It was a not-so-veiled reference to the indiscretions of his predecessor. Bush relied on the trust that stemmed from his supposedly higher character to take the nation to war, a war we have since learned was waged on mostly made-up intelligence.

Lewis (Scooter) Libby’s claim that it was the president who authorized the leaking of classified information for political gain may not mean that Bush did anything illegal, but it sure strips away the last fig leaf of his moral standing. It places the president at the center of a schoolyard fight to bully retired ambassador Joseph Wilson into shutting up about the administration’s lies that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Africa. Wilson had traveled to Niger and reported back to the CIA that the claim was false, yet Bush made the alleged purchase a centerpiece of his case for war.

According to testimony by Libby—Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff—Bush gave the go-ahead through the vice president for the otherwise secretive and always dutiful Libby to leak the classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to New York Times reporter Judith Miller. The leak set in motion the chain of events that led to the unmasking of Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife, as an undercover CIA officer who had been working for an energy-related front company while investigating nuclear proliferation. It is a serious crime to reveal the identity of a covert operative, and Bush called for a criminal investigation to “get to the bottom” of the scandal. It turns out he may be the bottom.

more at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12206700/site/newsweek/

:evilgrin:
dbt
Remember New Orleans

heh!

:rofl:

And when you think about it, outing a guy's wife, ruining her career because her husband dared to tell the truth about you . . . it sounds just like something the petty, vindictive, spoiled, arrogant, selfish George W. Bush would do.

AND, to pose like he was so appalled, (appalled, I tell you!) and then let the subordinates take the fall . . . that's the Bush family M.O.

I think this information brings a lot of clarity to the workings of this administration. The creeps like Cheney plot the big moves, and Bush goes around like some kind of Machiavellian prince, pursuing his agenda of conquest and revenge.

He appears to have given the okay to leak classified information not only to Miller, but to Woodward as well.

Every week we have another screwup by Bush and his cronies. If the leaders in the Democrat party do not take advantage of this situation, it's their fault. I would hate to see the Republicans turn things around in the next three years.

Is to fire himself, just like he said he would do to whoever leaked.

Look for these words from the White House:

"I just took a leak, and now I must fire myself."