Now, granted, I recognize that the news below isn't nearly as important as today's mega-reported revelation that Merideth Vieira will become Matt Lauer's smiling couchmate, but what the heck, there's a war on:
Here's President Bush, on Sept. 30, 2003: "“There’s just too many leaks, and if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.”
Here he is again, on Oct. 28, 2003: "I’d like to know if somebody in my White House did leak sensitive information.”
Perhaps he should be looking in the mirror?
Today there are two reliable reports, here and here, that indicted vice-presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby - obeying a specific order from Bush - leaked the contents of a highly classified intelligence document to the media during the summer of 2003 in order to defend the administration's rationale for war in Iraq.
That choice nugget is contained in papers filed yesterday in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Libby told the grand jury that he leaked the classified information based on "approval from the President through the Vice President." Sound crazy? You can read the whole court filing for yourself, here. The wires have picked up this story, too.
A question for Bush at his next press conference: "Sir, concerning the apparent leaks of classified national security information, and the sworn testimony by your vice president's top aide, do you intend to get to the bottom of all this?"
About Me
- Dick Polman
- Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. This online column is cited by The Washington Post as one of the top five mainstream political blogs in the country, and is touted by former "Hardball" TV producer Howard Mortman as "the immediately must-read political blog." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns. In his 22 years at the Inquirer, he has also been a foreign correspondent based in London; a baseball writer covering the Philadelphia Phillies; a general-assignment writer in the feature section; and a longtime Sunday magazine contributor. In the early '80s, he wrote three metro columns a week for the Hartford Courant. A graduate of George Washington University, today Dick is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence."