A Good Leak

April 14, 2006
A Good Leak —Terry Eastland

Joseph Wilson is the former ambassador who, in 2003, loudly accused President Bush of lying when he said that the British government had recently learned that Saddam Hussein sought quantities of uranium in Africa. Refusing to let this charge stand, the White House declassified pertinent parts of a prewar intelligence report. The point was to show that the president had good reason to believe Saddam was pursuing nuclear weapons.

Now comes the claim by former White House official Scooter Libby that a few days before its formal disclosure, he discussed this same, newly-declassified information with some reporters.

Democrats now accuse the president of leaking classified information through Libby. But a president is not engaging in some dubious act if he decides to disclose such information. Here the president felt compelled for national security reasons to present his side of the story. "A good leak," the Washington Post called it--and so it was.

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Source: Beyond the News, April 14, 2006 (beyondthenews.com)