"Misunderstanding by Innuendo"

This picture being an example of precisely that. The headline shown here has nothing to do with what’s reported in the story.

The San Luis Obispo Tribune ran that headline about a story that they weren’t actually running. So what gives? Austin Bay offered an interesting perspective on this phenomenon yesterday:

The sudden press flap over Scooter Libby’s alleged “revelation” that President Bush declassified intelligence information related to Iraq is silly but all too predictable. The entire flap relies on mixing terms and “misunderstanding by innuendo” — a technique of demagoguery, not journalism. The flap is yet more evidence that the national press is more interested in playing “gotcha” with the Bush Administration than reporting the news.

Presidents and vice-presidents can declassify information based on their own good (or bad) judgment. That is a privilege and responsibility of the office. Their authority is near-absolute. Disseminating unclassified information isn’t a crime — no matter the technique used. The information can be disseminated at a press conference, in a press release, in a speech, or — yes– via leak. (UPDATE: Background links I should have included in the original post– though the president’s power in the sphere is common knowledge. The president is at the top of the Classification Authority hierarchy– he holds the ultimate clasification/declassification power. The vice-president is granted authority from the president. See this link to the relevant executive order regarding the vie-president. And I just found this article by Byron York which details the estension of presidential powers to the vice-president. York’s article emphasizes the formal codification of the vice-president’s classification powers, which is a change from past administrations.)

Reporters thrive on “leaks” because a leak usually means “scoop.” A leak can also mean “spin” but that’s an understood aspect of Washington’s political carnival. However, leaking properly declassified material isn’t a crime. Leaking classified material is illegal– and so is publishing classified material in a press release.

So what’s the story here? That someone who worked in the White House selectively passed properly declassified material to the press? That’s not a scandal; that’s Beltway business as usual. I’d love to hear that reported– it’s not news per se, but it would be refreshingly open and honest media analysis.

However, the breathless excitement with which MSNBC (during the 3 PM CDT hour) broke this story certainly suggested scandal. An hour later the mood had calmed a bit; even so a rather smug Chris Matthews asked his attorney guest why Scooter Libby would “finger the President?” Dick Sauber (Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper’s lawyer) responded that Libby was probably trying to cover for himself. Sauber stressed that he did not know why but was making an educated guess. That’s reasonable speculation on Sauber’s part. (Sauber also said that this newly released information appears to undermine Libby’s claim that he was “too busy” to remember exactly what he said and to whom he said it during the “Plame affair.”) But the bottom line is the president can declassify information. “Finger” is a push word, stoked with criminal innuendo —but Bush was not engaged in a criminal act. Questioning Bush’s judgment is perfectly appropriate, but accusation of crime or lies is unwarranted. (As it is, the information in question came from the National Intelligence Estimate. The NIE information didn’t have anything to do with the Plame case.)

The updates are even more illuminating:

UPDATE: CNN is exploring another angle: that the White House is “hypocritical” because it has come down hard on leaks. But a word is missing in this accusation: “unauthorized.” The White House has indeed come down hard on anyone leaking classified information. The White House has also been tough on executive branch employees who pass information via unauthorized leaks. The president wants to control the dissemination of information and has made that clear. The information released today said that what Libby leaked as declassified and authorized — but try getting that clear on atv squawk show where the game is gotcha. The hypocrisy allegation, unlike the criminal innuendo, is certainly within rational bounds.

UPDATE 2: Hat-tip Captain’s Qaurters. Here’s the NY Sun article that started the press flap. The article strikes me as factual and straight-forward. I’m watching MSNBC again and the network is interviewing a man who says Bush has a political vulnerability on this issue but no legal vulnerability. Okay, I’ve written that. So the flap is the story? I think that’s the case –again, we’ve demagoguery, not journalism.

UPDATE 3: A quick refresher course in the Plame affair. Why be interested in Ambassador Wilson’s wife? According to the White House, she recommended that her husband be selected to make the trip to Niger. If that’s the case Plame wasn’t merely a wife– she was professionally involved.

Don’t buy it? Take another peek at the picture…