Ah, It Was A Bad Leak

The NY Times responds to last week's controversial WaPo editorial titled "A Good Leak" with their own "A Bad Leak".  [And we see that the WaPo ombudsman tackles this as well.]  The topic is the news that Bush chose to declassify a portion of the NIE so that Libby could discuss it with Bob Woodward in late June and Judy Miller in early July.  Highlights of the NIE were then declassified on July 18, 2003.

Some silly bits from the Times editors:

Since Mr. Bush regularly denounces leakers, the White House has made much of the notion that he did not leak classified information, he declassified it. This explanation strains credulity. Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified.

To declassify an intelligence document, officials have to decide whether disclosing the information would jeopardize the sources that provided it or the methods used to gather it. To answer that question, they closely study the origins of the intelligence to be disclosed.

One might think the Times editors could hold on to the not-subtle distinction between what a President can do within his Executive power, and what he ought to do if exercising his power responsibly. 

This messy episode leaves more questions than answers, so it is imperative that two things happen soon. First, the federal prosecutor in the Libby case should release the transcripts of what Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney said when he questioned them.

The federal prosecutor should release the transcripts?  If disclosure and transparency are the new norm then perhaps, in clearing up their own role in this messy story, the Times could:

(a) report on their own subpoena fight with Libby's legal team;

(b) tell us what surprises might be found in Nick Kristof's notes, or Judy Miller's.  Both are subject to subpoena (we think), both might become evidence at trial - why the wait?  [We are especially curious because Nick Kristif may himself have known about Ms. Plame's CIA connection, and Judy Miller may have learned about Ms. Plame from someone at the State Dept. (and the Net Widens as to who at State may have known).]

(c) clear up a few mysteries for us - when the Times ran the famous Joe Wilson op-ed on July 6, 2003 did they know that he was an unpaid adviser to the Kerry campaign?  Did they know that his wife was in the CIA group that was battling the White House over pre-war intelligence?

The Times presented Joe Wilson thusly for his op-ed:

Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant.

Did the Times consider more forthright descriptions, such as "Kerry adviser bashes Bush", or "On intel dispute with White House, CIA spouse backs CIA"?  Just wondering.

Comments

[clarice]

As to (c) What was Joe doing at the Dem Senatorial confab where he met Kristof? Who introduced them? When the report of this meeting indicates he met with Wilson and his wife for lunch.it was referring to Plame weren't it? Did she just nibble French toast? Did she introduce herself? Did she offer any information--for example, about the forgeries? Is that why though Kristof (et al) carried the forgeries story as part of his and then later said he hadn't mentioned the forgeries after all? Is she, not Joe, the whistleblower Fitz says needs protection?

[clarice]

As to (b) Do Judy's notes show interviews with Armitage? Grossman? Did they tell her about Plame? When? Do her editor's notes indicate she was tasked to get Libby to say what the Times already knew? By June 23, 2003 when she met with Libby, did the NYT already have a plan to run Joe's op ed, and were they looking for something else to put in there or were they asking her to scout out the Administration's response?

[clarice]

Back to (c) again, How many times did Kristof discuss Joe with Larry Johnson? With other members of the VIPS? Were they ever anonymously sourced in his stories? Did he know that they had a dog in this fight? Did he ever tell that to the readers?
Did he ever talk to Scowcroft? When? What did he say about Wilson? About Plame?

[BumperStickerist]

.

~ I'm feelin' 7Up! It's a cool,
refresh....~
.

[maryrose]

Clarice:
All excellent questions. NYT can't whine and complain whilst withholding information from their readers and Libby's lawyers. Come clean now and stop questinning a presidential authority that you NYT do not have the power to change. Time to put up or shut up.

[clarice]

Thanks, "weren;t" in the 1st question should be "wasn't" though *urgh*

[Neo]

Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified.

Wow! The NYT should know that the wand is purely optional.

[Stormy70]

Bumperstickerist - you are very refreshing. Ahhh!

Plame is the whistleblower here, I think.

[SteveMG]

Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified

Who does he think he is, Bill Keller?

Legitimate point by the Times, but I'm doubtful that they have the street cred, so to speak, to make it.

At least if it's my street.

SMG

[clarice]

[quote]In many instances, it would be nice (for diplomatic, strategic, investigative, or other purposes) if information could be kept under wraps. But governance is freighted with politics — which means it is beset by misinformation, half-truths, and the inaccuracies you get in a bumptious partisan environment, fueled by 24-hour news channels and a press whose default state is frenzy. Consequently, when misinformation approaches a tipping point in the court of public opinion, it is often to the greater good for a president to disclose some sensitive, accurate information so the public is not led astray.
Classic example of this? After the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in 1998, the Clinton Administration retaliated, in part, by bombing the al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. Almost immediately, President Clinton was attacked politically: we had taken out a mere aspirin factory, Sudan was not a threat to us, it was a gratuitous act of American aggression, etc.
So what did the Clinton Administration do? Exactly what it should have done. It had intelligence officials leak to the media previously undisclosed, previously classified information which put President Clinton’s decision in sensible context. [snip]
The press was not very supportive of the Sudan bombing — it was, after all, a use of American military power. But they liked Clinton, so the selective disclosure of previously classified information by Clinton officials was treated matter-of-factly — as it should have been. The story was about the information, not the leak.
To the contrary, they abhor Bush, so the Libby story is about the leak — not the NIE information. That information, of course, puts Iraq operations — which the media also oppose — in more accurate context. Obviously, if your champion is Joseph Wilson, you’d much rather be talking about leaks than substance.
That’s the way the game is played now — and it stinks.[/quote]

http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200604071224.asp

[RKV]

As someone who has actually HAD a security clearance, yes the presidient CAN declassify any damn thing he wants, irrespective of what the NYTWPABCCBSNBCLATSFC wants. Jesus wept.

[clarice]

I've been critical of the NYT's naming only 2 subjects of the discovey request--Tenat and Fleischer--but it occurs to me that they must have signed waivers of the pledge of confidentiality. Certianly, if the undisclosed subjects are Plame and Wilson and Beers and Johnson ,for example, they certainly have not.

[clarice]

***discoveRy request--TenE---certainly****

[Neo]

This messy episode leaves more questions than answers and ain't that the truth.

Perhaps the NYT, as a matter of public record, disclose all the "leaks" that it has gotten over, say, the past two decades and who leaked them, along with reporters notes for each of these leaks, notes of NYT "officials" that decided to publish or not to publish, and whether the leaks was disclose in it's entirety or selectively.
How are the American people to know that the NYT wasn't using this information to promote an agenda within the NYT or for the favour of a political person or group outside the NYT.

I say the NYT should put up (and the shut up part is off the table). The truth shall set you free.

[Dave]

We now have the forced admission that in 2003 George W. Bush himself approved the leaking of classified intelligence gathered before the Iraq War. He didn't let it all leak out. He authorized a trickle of information buttressing his case that Saddam Hussein had been a nuclear threat. Information that had already been discredited.

Apparently what we need is for Mommy to protect us from the bad old terrorists. Or Alan Alda. Or something. But not Bush.

[clarice]

Here's a good rundown of the articles (largely WaPo and NYT ) about the intelligence that led us to bomb El Shifa..Read and laugh because (a) there's a lot of sympathetic head nodding about the normal shortcomings of intelligence and (b) clearly a lot os selectively disclosed classifed information supporting the President (Clinton's) decision to bomb the aspirin plant on the basis of such, then understandable, shortcomings of intelligence.

[clarice]

http://intellit.muskingum.edu/terrorism_folder/terrorism90s_folder/terrorism98air.html

[AST]

You'd think they'd be grateful that the declassification prevented Wilson's getting away with a lie. Apparently, they didn't want to know the other side of his accusations.

It's pretty hard to believe that they're now so scrupulous about declassifying papers. Weren't the Pentagon Papers classified? Did the Times go through any such analysis as they advocate here? Was that a good leak or a bad leak? See: http://partners.nytimes.com/books/97/04/13/reviews/970413.13clymert.html

I'm just sick of this whole story. They don't seem to know that they ceased to resemble an objective news organization long ago. Now it's just a suspense tale, and a pretty boring one to boot.

[clarice]

faulty intel then and now

[Dave]

Clarice, is th this the intended URL?

[clarice]

Wrong page--go here. http://tinyurl.com/rsqop

[fletcher hudson]

If the Times were really interested in getting to the truth in "this sorry mess" they would sponsor a panel discussion of all reporters who have been subpeoned so they could tell the public what they know. I am amazed that no one--to my knowlwdge-- has ever called upon Russert to give his side of the Libby conversation. Why haven't pro-bush editorial writers and commentators done so?
Why doesn't some guest--when Russert brings the subject up-- ask him to first tell us what he knows? Why hasn't Imus asked him about about it?

[Seixon]

I think their position can be summed up as: We Can Leak, Not You

[larwyn]

Fletcher,
Great questions.

I think the answer to the last one can be answer by the attacks on Chris Matthews when he just approached the line the LEFT has set.

And this is a small community, these journos, and I am sure all have files on each others "eccentricities" at the ready.

The RePubs politicians don't challenge Russert - they want the face time and he rarely invites the real fighters like Duncan Hunter who don't back down.

[Dwilkers]

"Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified."

This is false.

Classification is owned by the executive branch in this country, and the executive is embodied in the elected president. Anyone that thinks the president cannot declassify at his own pleasure is mistaken. McCarthy had a post up on this on NRO a couple of weeks ago. In addition to being well, stupid, this is mendacious on its face since the NYTimes surely knows this very well.

And what is this anyway? The WaPo editorializes "Good Leak" so the NYTimes has to retort with "Bad Leak"? Is this a farkin schoolyard?

"Am not." "Are too." "Am not."

OK then. Thank you for that NYTimes editors.

[Florence Schmieg]

The NYTimes has become very slipshod in its fact checking for its news pages and its editorial page is so partisan even Democrats are amazed. The Washington Post editorial page has far better analysis and a variety of writers. Much, much better than the Times.

I made the mistake of watching Hardball Friday night. The Bush administration is dead, dead, dead they crowed (even the so called republicans on the panel Carlson and Scarborough). It was just horrible. It was (hope I don't offend anyone) political masturbation.

[clarice]

Actually, Florence you have explained what Matthews is doing better than anyone else ever has.

[TallDave]

Even Joe Wilson cannot wave a wand and magically transform a trip to Niger ordered by his wife that supported the claim Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger into one ordered by Cheney that debunked the notion.

But the New York Times CAN!!

"The Politics of Truth," indeed.

[clarice]

We are know this I think, but the NY Sun makes this clear--the INR report which disclosed that Plame worked at the CIA and recommended her husband for the Mission does not indicate her status there was a secret(classified or covert):
[quote]Contrary to published reports, a State Department memorandum at the center of the investigation into the leak of the name of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, appears to offer no particular indication that Ms. Plame's role at the agency was classified or covert.

The memo, drafted by the then head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and addressed to the then secretary of state, Colin Powell, was carried aboard Air Force One as President Bush departed for Africa in July 2003. A declassified version of the document was obtained by The New York Sun on Saturday.

A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is investigating whether White House officials illegally leaked Ms. Plame's CIA connection as part of a campaign to rebut or retaliate against her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, a former ambassador who traveled to Niger in 2002 at the CIA's request to look into reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium there. He later became an open critic of the administration.

Mr. Fitzgerald's investigators have attempted to establish a precise chain of custody for the document because it is one way some White House officials might have learned that Mr. Wilson's wife was a CIA employee, working in the agency's weapons of mass destruction division.

"In a February 19, 2002, meeting convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager, and the wife of Joe Wilson, he previewed his plans and rationale for going to Niger," the memo from the State Department intelligence chief, Carl Ford Jr., said. Mr. Ford also drafted an earlier version of the memo, addressed to an undersecretary of state, Marc Grossman. Mr. Grossman apparently sought the information about Mr. Wilson's trip after receiving inquiries from the then chief of staff to Vice President (more)[/quote]http://www.nysun.com/article/31062

[TallDave]

appears to offer no particular indication that Ms. Plame's role at the agency was classified or covert

And that's not even news. Everyone right of DKos has already admitted the obvious fact that undercover agents don't drive to freakin CIA headquarters every day.

The whole DOJ referral stinks of a political vendetta.

[steve]

I beg you, please don't use the word "thusly" -- the correct word is "thus."

[Nash]

One might think that the proprietor of this site could hold on to to the not-subtle distinction between what editorials can say in 700 words or less while still having a chance of communicating anything and what they they would never achieve if eternally held to TM's legalistically prissy parsing of meanings.

For in every universe except the one with TM as godhead, the NYT's words are UNDERSTOOD to be talking about "ought" and not "legally permitted." It is entirely sad that this remains beyond TM's ability to comprehend.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

'Plame is the whistleblower here, I think.'

If she was, then Fitz should have indicted her. It was only the informality of Wilson's CIA connection that allowed him to get away with leaking about his trip to Niger.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

NYT can't whine and complain whilst withholding information from their readers and Libby's lawyers.

Wanna bet?

[drjohn]

The NY Times: all the news that's fit to hurt Bush.

And nothing less.

[Nash]

"I beg you, please don't use the word "thusly" -- the correct word is "thus.""

Steve, we need to get you to quit using that abridged dictionary. Funk & Wagnall's New "Standard" shows

thusly (adverb) (humorous): In this manner

[Gary Maxwell]

No Nash, most universes totally ignor the the NYT so that comprehension ( or understood ) is never broached. Sorry for you that your universe is the outlier.

[Specter]

Nash,

huh?

[ed]

The logic used in that Sun piece can be whittled down to this: Her status couldn't be dicerned as secret because the whole document was secret.

Explain how that makes any sense. Kudos to the Sun for posting the actual documents though

[Cecil Turner]

What a stinker. This thing has more holes than Swiss cheese.

But the version of the facts that Mr. Libby was authorized to divulge was so distorted that it seems more like disinformation than any sincere attempt to inform the public.

Ah, the "Libby misrepresented the NIE" story, since debunked, lives on at the Times. "Disinformation" indeed (projection anyone?).

He permitted a leak of cherry-picked portions of the report.

This "cherry-picked" meme continues the lie started by Murray Waas that the released NIE doesn't include caveats known to the Administration. They ought to be called on it every time they spout it (ditto for Waas).

In this case, Mr. Libby was authorized to talk about claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons in Africa and not more reliable evidence to the contrary.

Horse-puckey. The report had all the caveats in it, and nobody knows exactly what Libby was authorized to discuss.

Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified.

Continues the "instant declassification" lie, which ignores the fact the declassification process had been ongoing for a month at CIA:

Tenet had agreed to provide "full documentation" of the intelligence material "in regards to Secretary Powell's comments, the president's comments and anybody else's comments." [June 9th, 2003]

The idea that this amounted to a current, aggressive and continuing campaign to build nuclear weapons in 2002 — as Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney called it — is laughable.

And if we just ignore the rest of the report, we can pretend it doesn't say anything like:

How quickly Iraq will obtain its first nuclear weapon depends on when it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.

If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year.

I can't recall reading a more dishonest piece. Kudos to the Times, already pioneers in this area, for broadening their horizons.

[Nash]

Doing a dude a favor: In which our intrepid correspondent divines a future where our host, the over-worked TM, is forced to blog the complaint "There you go again, NYT, burying the lede." And by so divining, our brave correspondent saves the heroic TM the trouble:

From today's NYT:

General Defends Rumsfeld, With a Caveat
By JIM RUTENBERG

Published: April 17, 2006
WASHINGTON, April 16 — Gen. Richard B. Myers, who retired six months ago as the nation's top military officer, said Sunday that senior administration officials had been wrong to criticize the former Army chief publicly just before the invasion of Iraq for saying the mission could require a much larger force than was ultimately committed.

"He was inappropriately criticized, I believe, for speaking out," General Myers said in an interview on ABC, speaking of the former Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who is retired.

And here's where the nifty oracle-ification by our wonderous correspondent occurs in assisting TM:

Gee guys, you don't get to the important point until graf 3:

General Myers's comment came with otherwise supportive words for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is facing calls to resign from several retired generals, some of whom were involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Because, and TM would certainly be forced to say this if I hadn't saved him the effort, it's far more newsworthy that a just-retired-from-the-Bush Admin official got "otherwise supportive" with his words than that he chided this Admin for dissing a respected officer.

Common NYT, what's up with that?

[Nash]

No Nash, most universes totally ignor the the NYT so that comprehension ( or understood ) is never broached. Sorry for you that your universe is the outlier.

Gary post-modernizes Yogi's "now I know why no one eats here anymore...there's never enough room to park."

You might want to go tell it on the mountains of TM's universe, then, Gary. Seems he didn't get your memo.

[Bill in AZ]

er... jealous of TM, Nash? it's showing...

[owl]

Just keep thinking that Berger learned the lesson of the Nixon tapes to the extent he was willing to gamble with socks and scissors...so thinking about some of the questions concerning the NYT. So many notes in that place and I keep thinking that the dog ate them by now. Miller's hostile editor? Kristoff's?

[TallDave]

Nash:

the NYT's words are UNDERSTOOD to be talking about "ought" and not "legally permitted."

No. they aren't. Read it again. They conflate "leak" (illegal) with Presidential discretion to declassify (not illegal). Then they spend a couple dozen of their precious 700 words explaining all the procedures lower officials use for determining what should be declassified. Then they spend more of those words pretending they don't know that field reports don't go straight to the President in two days. Then they demand the transcripts from a legal proceeding.

The point of this obfuscation is to smear the distinction so they can pretend Bush did something wrong, as opposed to something that merely undermines the NYT agenda of calling Bush a liar.

[Cecil Turner]

Talk about burying the lede, this calls for a red star cluster: THE SUN PUBLISHED THE INR MEMO!! We've been waiting for this thing for a couple years, now. Unfortunately, they appear to've snipped some of the juicy bits, and just plain took an eraser to some of the classification markings . . . but still.

[TM]

...please don't use the word "thusly"

But I'm hooked!

They'll have to pry "thusly" from my cold, dead dictionary.

[Dwilkers]

My personal favorite is "irregardless" which has now managed to enter the dictionary through common use.

[topsecretk9]

He permitted a leak of cherry-picked portions of the report.

This "cherry-picked" meme continues the lie started by Murray Waas that the released NIE doesn't include caveats known to the Administration. They ought to be called on it every time they spout it (ditto for Waas).

They have a history of cherry picking these lefty memes and getting burned, sort of like "Groundhog Day"...ask Paul Krugman

[ed]

the sun had a second memo link at the end of the article earlier today. anyone know what it was and what happened to it?