Today at The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, the President spoke on the Global War on Terror. He started by marking the third anniversary of the liberation of Iraq. How was that war gone? Oh wait, it's still going on.
In response to a student's question regarding Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald's report about "evidence of a concerted effort by the White House to puish Joseph Wilson", the President replied,
I will say this, that after we liberated Iraq, there was questions in people's minds about the basis on which I made statements, in other words, going into Iraq. And so I decided to declassify the NIE for a reason. I wanted to see -- people to see what some of those statements were based on. So I wanted to see -- I wanted people to see the truth and thought it made sense for people to see the truth. And that's why I declassified the document.Sounds like a flip-flop to me. While declassifying information is not illegal, the fact that leaking intelligence led to the death of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, has got to be some kind of illegal. Maybe conspiracy even. Certainly it violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. It's also possible that the President can order a killing, but then again, Plame wasn't a terrorist.
Back at a 2003 Press Briefing, then Whitehouse Press Secretary, Scott McClellan said that "The President expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No one would be authorized to do such a thing..." Now, I could go through a whole list of "highest standards of conduct" violations that have been made by leaders of the Republican party. On a side note, if you read this briefing, you might almost feel bad for Mr. McClellan too.
Bush has repeatedly claimed to not know who leaked the information, and that leaking classified information is a serious matter. He also has said that he would punish whomever was involved in this leak.
A few words for you Mr. President: honesty, integrity, trust. All words that are small enough that you should know their meanings. I'm pretty sure you've said all of them at various points in your life. And to quote Stewie Griffin, "When you least expect it, your uppance will come!"