It was Bush all along

President Bush's quest to muzzle leakers in his administration has always looked a bit odd. In the most charitable interpretation, it's a naïve waste of time and resources. Leaks are part of every administration, and Bush's claims that national security has been undermined appear dubious at best.

It is a Nixonesque attempt to intimidate anyone who dares interfere with administration policy by disclosing facts that it is hiding. Among the leaks that angered Bush most have been disclosures that the administration was engaging in wiretaps without court approval and that someone in the administration leaked the identity of a CIA operative. After two unproductive years, the federal investigation into the 2003 leak of the operative's identity has finally come full circle to wound the instigator of the probe himself — the president. Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's top aide, testified that in the summer of 2003, Cheney told him that Bush had personally approved disclosing parts of the classified National Intelligence Estimate — though not the operative's name — to bolster one of the administration's key claims for going to war — Iraq was trying to buy uranium to produce nuclear weapons. That, like the administration's other rationales for war, proved false.

Presidents can and do declassify such data and that's precisely what Bush did, 10 DAYS AFTER Libby's disclosure, giving the public information it had a right to know. But first, the White House cherry-picked pieces to prop up its case and leaked them to a favored reporter. It's no wonder that the public does not trust these Republicans.