A Reasonable Assessment Of The Leak Controversy

Steven Taylor has a great post discussing the Bush-Cheney-Libby leak story. Rather than attacking or defending the President, Taylor assesses the situation for what its political realities. Here's some of what he writes, though I recommend reading this post in its entirety:

The supporters would appear to be correct (I am not an expert on the law in this area, but there appears to be a consensus on this topic): the President can declassify documents as he sees fit... However, the opponents are correct as well: there was some clear politicking going on here, and the President can be seen to be acting hypocritically on the subject of leaks. Further, the situation is complicated by the fact that the White House has, heretofore, painted the Plame leak as something that a rogue member of the administration did on his or her own. Even if there is no evidence that the President directly or indirectly authorized discussion of Plame, it is clear now that whatever Libby did, it was done was some serious official blessing. That alters the public narrative that the White House has been telling since this story first broke. [...]

In conclusion: we can bicker over whether this was "authorized declassification" or a "leak" but in all practical matters such arguments are silly. Just because the President had legal authorization to release the document doesn't make this less a leak - it was still selectively released to the press for the purpose of benefiting the administration before it was widely made available to the public.