Yesterday’s, “Much Ado About a hairdo” was really about a Congressional sucker punch to Capital Police Officer.
Today’s, “Much Ado About a Redo”, is really about the liberal media’s rehash of a story that did not get any traction the first time around in February. Tom Maguire calls this the non-barking dog syndrome. HAH!
And, so today the democratic media decided to rehash a variant of the story but with added volume in hopes that repetition would prove the president guilty.
Today, the media is reporting that “Libby Says Bush Authorized Leaks” . The problem with this story is that this “fresh” attack on Bush is not what the Dems want you to believe it is. It’s a new spin on an OLD Story!
As Powerline notes, February 10 is actually when the story broke:
A former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney told a federal grand jury that his superiors authorized him to give secret information to reporters as part of the Bush administration’s defense of intelligence used to justify invading Iraq, according to court papers.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said in documents filed last month that he plans to introduce evidence that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, disclosed to reporters the contents of a classified National Intelligence Estimate in the summer of 2003.
The NIE is a report prepared by the head of the nation’s intelligence operations for high-level government officials, up to and including the president. Portions of NIEs are sometimes declassified and made public. It is unclear whether that happened in this instance.
Powerline remarked on this first version back on February 10, 2006:
“The NIE has been declassified since the summer of 2003, and we have quoted from it many times since then. These proceedings from the House of Representatives show that the NIE had been declassified no later than July 21, 2003. So it’s not exactly a mystery whether “that happened in this instance.” There are only two alternatives here: either AP reporters are too lazy to spend 30 seconds on Google to educate themselves as to what happened during the ancient history of 2003, or they write articles that are deliberately misleading.”
By the way, the 2002 NIE was the document that indicated that the consensus of all American intelligence agencies was that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and was a substantial threat to American security. No mention of that in the AP story, either.
In the summer of 2003, White House officials including Libby were frustrated that the media were incorrectly reporting that Cheney had sent Wilson to Niger and had received a report of his findings in Africa before the war in Iraq had begun.
In an effort to counter those reports, Libby and other White House officials sought information from the CIA regarding Wilson and how his trip to Niger came about, according to court records.
Just to be clear, The White House was frustrated that the MEDIA was INCORRECTLY reporting that Cheney had sent Wilson to Nigeria so the president authorized release of the classified documents to get the truth out. That is what the liberals and their media are screaming about today.
Now, here is the latest version of the February story that has the Left foaming at the mouth today:
Vice President Dick Cheney’s former top aide told prosecutors that President Bush authorized a leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.
The filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald also describes Cheney involvement in I. Lewis Libby’s communications with the press.
There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame’s CIA identity…
…Before his indictment, Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on prewar intelligence on Iraq and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say.
The disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.
Presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said Thursday the White House would have no comment on the ongoing investigation. At a congressional hearing, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the president has the “inherent authority to decide who should have classified information.”
Of course all of this was legal and necessary since Joe Wilson was out spreading lies about his trip to Nigeria and his findings while he was there.
If it weren’t for Joe Wilson intentionally lying about the Bush Administration, this wouldn’t be a story about a non-leak, and it would mean that the classified material would still be protected today. Thanks to Joe Wilson and his lies, this news is now out in the open for all to see… just like his his wife’s career at the CIA.
Austin Bay describes this as “misunderstanding by innuendo” – a technique of demagoguery, not journalism. (via Instapundit)
Blue Crab Boulevard gets right to the point.
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