Leaks and Hypocrisy
posted by Will
Jonathan Alter is my new favorite journalist. His current story in Newsweek about President Bush making public (leaking), at a politically opportune time, previously classified information about an alleged foiled plot to attack a skyscraper in Los Angeles is excellent. Not only does he have the guts to report on what is a fundamental disconnect between administration actions and the charges the administration makes against the opposition, he is honest enough to raise the much more serious issue at hand: intense hypocrisy in Republican ranks stemming from party loyalty and nothing more. He makes the point that I think could and should be made about almost any controversial aspect of this administration's behavior: if a Democratic president were doing what the Bush administration does on a daily basis, the right's calls for impeachment would be deafening.
1 Comments:
Why was it declassified now? Why wasn't Mayor Villaraigosa told? What purpose could there be for telling this to the public other than the selfish use of intelligence data to serve only the administration's ends?
So ... it's OK to use your legal authority since you happen to be in power to "declassify" security information that may or may not be true in order to make a partisan point about how you should be uniquely trusted with the "LEGAL" authority to engage in an EXTRALEGAL and UNCONSTITUTIONAL power grab because (wait for it ...) YOU SAY SO, but it's NOT OK to leak information to the press about said ILLEGAL program because the President says it's bad for national security, when it also happens to be damaging to a President for the public to learn that his administration has been overreaching and treating Congress (a Congress ruled by his own party!) as a doormat.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I would say you've missed all of the above.
"Illegally" leaking information about something illegal the administration is doing is not "illegal", it's called "whistleblowing", and I'd like to think it's inevitable.
Seems like a fair number of Republicans in Congress are glad this was leaked, I might add. Not to mention Republican-appointed FISA court judges. Are they just asking questions to suit their agenda?
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