Leaker-in-Chief?

Los Angeles Times : "Experts in national security law say a decision by President Bush to authorize the leak of classified information to a reporter probably would not be illegal. "But if Bush did so -- as a former top White House aide has testified he did -- there could be significant damage to the credibility of a president who has repeatedly and publicly expressed his abhorrence of leaks. . . .

"But the experts also said that if the testimony of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was true, Bush's actions violated a traditional unwritten understanding that any declassification decision would be made in close consultation with intelligence officials."

Boston Globe : "The possibility that Bush authorized a selective leak to a single correspondent suggests a desire to shape the news to the administration's ends -- a possible misuse of the president's national security powers. . . .

"Such tactics are hardly unusual in politics, but would seem to damage the credibility of a president who has built a reputation for forthrightness, and who has gone further than previous presidents both in keeping information secret and in launching Justice Department investigations of alleged leakers."

Chicago Tribune : "It was Bush himself, answering a reporter's question in Chicago after speaking with business leaders at the University of Chicago, on Sept. 30, 2003, who said: 'Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.

" 'Leaks of classified information are a bad thing,' Bush said then. 'And we've had them -- there's too much leaking in Washington. That's just the way it is. And we've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are.' ''

Hey, no fair, using the guy's own words against him!

American Prospect's Greg Sargent surmises a campaign coverup:

"The thing about the Plame investigation that never quite seemed to make sense was this: Why would Libby or Rove deliberately mislead the grand jury, risking perjury charges when it wasn't clear the leak was a crime?

"Thanks to Waas, for the first time, we may now know for a fact that Rove and other Bush advisers viewed the truth about the run-up to war as something that could destroy his re-election prospects. It is entirely plausible that Bush advisers calculated that if it came out that they'd outed Plame, Congress would have been forced by the resulting firestorm to run a far more aggressive investigation of Bush's pre-war deceptions -- and possibly uncover the smoking gun Waas reports on, among other things. Remember, Libby and Rove testified in early 2004, during the heat of a presidential campaign which Rove himself had apparently concluded was at risk if existing hard evidence of Bush's deceptions surfaced.

"So it seems plausible that Libby and Rove sought to minimize the chance of the aggressive congressional oversight that might have resulted if it became known that they'd outed Plame. In short, misleading the grand jury about Plame may simply have been a key piece of a broader effort to get past the election before the truth about the run-up to the war surfaced to sink his campaign."

Americablog's John Aravosis says Bush is guilty of that which he rails against: