A "senior administration official" is leaking anonymously to the NY Times about the Bush leak. Of course, that SAO is spinning the Times. The question reporters need to ask is whether they can believe anything Bush officials tell them. The lying starts at the top. Bush lied about starting a war so lying about anything else is easy. Top officials in the Bush White House have been accused of lying under oath. Lying to reporters -- and the American people -- is nothing:
The disclosure on Sunday appeared intended to bolster the White House argument that Mr. Bush was acting well within his legal authority when he ordered that key conclusions of the classified intelligence estimate should be revealed to make clear that intelligence agencies believed Mr. Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa.In general, Bush plays a peripheral role at the White House and is uninformed about specifics on any issue. That's not news.
Moreover, the disclosure seemed intended to suggest that Mr. Bush might have played only a peripheral role in the release of the classified material and was uninformed about the specifics — like the effort to dispatch Mr. Libby to discuss the estimate with reporters.
At least the Times questions the spin from the White House:
The explanation offered Sunday left open several questions, including when Mr. Bush acted and whether he did so on the advice or at the request of Mr. Cheney. Still unclear is the nature of the communication between Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. Also unknown is whether Mr. Bush fully realized what information Mr. Cheney planned to disclose through Mr. Libby or was aware of the precise use that Mr. Cheney intended to make of the material.It also is unclear whether anything coming from the Bush White House has a grain of truth.
