All I'm Sayin' Is ...
If and when the President decides he wants to share information in the public interest, even classified information, I encourage him to do so.
We all do. That is why he is able to request prime-time TV coverage of his statements from the Oval Office, or anywhere else he needs to be while sharing such information with us. It's why major news organizations pay people to go listen to Scott McClellan every day, in case he has something the President wants to share with us.
If there is classified information the President thinks it's important for the American people to know, of course he can declassify it and tell us. He should. That's part of the job, I think. And since he's a busy man, if he wants, he can ask someone who works for him to tell us about it. He could even invite the bipartisan leadership of Congress over and have a chat with them about it and ask if they would be so kind as to relay the message. There are a number of reasonable ways for the President of the United States to pass along important information, newly declassified, to us, the American people.
So, doesn't it seem a bit odd that he would have chosen to declassify a document in such a way that only he, Dick Cheney, and Scooter Libby knew it was declassified, even though lots of other people were already eager to see it, and were asking for it to be declassified and were being told it was classified? Seems like it would have helped his sharing of information to let them all see it right then.
And I'm thinking that, if it was really declassified and meant to be shared with the American people in the public interest, it's kind of odd that Mr. Libby wanted a legal opinion from Mr. Addington before going off and sharing it.
It sure seems curious that, instead of calling a press conference, or telling Congressional leaders, or anything, the President thought the best way of sharing this information in the public interest was to have Mr. Libby tell it to a single reporter in a private conversation at the St. Regis hotel. It just seems inefficient, y'know?
And am I the only one who thinks it a bit weird that, in that conversation, when Judy Miller asked Libby about how she should attribute the information, Mr. Libby suggested she say he was a "former Capitol Hill staffer", instead of a White House official?
Because really, if there's nothing untoward here, and the President was just sharing information in the public interest, why didn't Libby say "the President has declassified this material in the public interest, just so that I could share it with you, Judy, and your readers. Please, identify me by name!"
I mean, sure, it might have looked a little funny for a senior White House aide to be on the record saying that the White House believed that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger, just a few days after the guy who'd actually gone over and looked into the reality of the situation had publicly stated that no such thing ever happened, and also that he'd told that to the administration. But really, it's the public's interest that's important, right? Important enough to declassify a national security document in fact. So, why release it this way?
There the President was, declassifying and releasing information in the public interest, with "no political motive", to rebut some "irresponsible and unfounded accusations" (which, god forbid we might have believed otherwise) and instead of doing it on TV, he has a guy passing it out on the 'down-low', and trying to get people thinking the information is coming from Congress.
It just seems really weird. That's all I'm sayin'.
We all do. That is why he is able to request prime-time TV coverage of his statements from the Oval Office, or anywhere else he needs to be while sharing such information with us. It's why major news organizations pay people to go listen to Scott McClellan every day, in case he has something the President wants to share with us.
If there is classified information the President thinks it's important for the American people to know, of course he can declassify it and tell us. He should. That's part of the job, I think. And since he's a busy man, if he wants, he can ask someone who works for him to tell us about it. He could even invite the bipartisan leadership of Congress over and have a chat with them about it and ask if they would be so kind as to relay the message. There are a number of reasonable ways for the President of the United States to pass along important information, newly declassified, to us, the American people.
So, doesn't it seem a bit odd that he would have chosen to declassify a document in such a way that only he, Dick Cheney, and Scooter Libby knew it was declassified, even though lots of other people were already eager to see it, and were asking for it to be declassified and were being told it was classified? Seems like it would have helped his sharing of information to let them all see it right then.
And I'm thinking that, if it was really declassified and meant to be shared with the American people in the public interest, it's kind of odd that Mr. Libby wanted a legal opinion from Mr. Addington before going off and sharing it.
It sure seems curious that, instead of calling a press conference, or telling Congressional leaders, or anything, the President thought the best way of sharing this information in the public interest was to have Mr. Libby tell it to a single reporter in a private conversation at the St. Regis hotel. It just seems inefficient, y'know?
And am I the only one who thinks it a bit weird that, in that conversation, when Judy Miller asked Libby about how she should attribute the information, Mr. Libby suggested she say he was a "former Capitol Hill staffer", instead of a White House official?
Because really, if there's nothing untoward here, and the President was just sharing information in the public interest, why didn't Libby say "the President has declassified this material in the public interest, just so that I could share it with you, Judy, and your readers. Please, identify me by name!"
I mean, sure, it might have looked a little funny for a senior White House aide to be on the record saying that the White House believed that Saddam had tried to buy uranium from Niger, just a few days after the guy who'd actually gone over and looked into the reality of the situation had publicly stated that no such thing ever happened, and also that he'd told that to the administration. But really, it's the public's interest that's important, right? Important enough to declassify a national security document in fact. So, why release it this way?
There the President was, declassifying and releasing information in the public interest, with "no political motive", to rebut some "irresponsible and unfounded accusations" (which, god forbid we might have believed otherwise) and instead of doing it on TV, he has a guy passing it out on the 'down-low', and trying to get people thinking the information is coming from Congress.
It just seems really weird. That's all I'm sayin'.
posted by Paul at 6:05 PM |
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