The way I see it, if the President asserts that he effectively declassified the NIE, then by the White house logic, there is no leak, which means no laws were broken which means the country spent millions of dollars investigating a non-crime, Judy Miller was sent to jail for no reason and dozens of people had to hire attorney to represent them over a non-existent issue. All this while the President was enjoying the show!

"Did Bush break the law in allowing Libby to talk about the NIE? Probably not. An executive order issued by Bush in March 2003 gives the president and vice president specific authority to declassify documents at will."

This is just mind-boggling in its Nixonian wonder. "If the President does it, it's not illegal"--especially if he says it's not illegal. Who knows what other Executive Orders they have lying around. Message: I prepare.

Maybe I'm being too hair-splitting about this, but isn't there a difference between leaking and declassifying? When information is *declassified* the public, in principal, has access to it. If only Bush, Cheney, and Libby know a document is "declassified," the public's right to the information is circumvented. It will not be available through FOIA and it will not become part of the record. Presidential powers do not exist for the political convenience of the executive, they are intended to represent a careful balancing of security with democracy. Is information critical to national security or not? Any system that allows the president to answer this question both ways is not functioning on behalf of the people. Perhaps all of the journalists who are blithely assuring us that the president did nothing illegal are correct (though I wonder how many have checked with a lawyer who is not David Addington). But if they don't go after him for undermining our democracy, they're just giving him a pass.

Worse than Nixxon. Far worse than Clinton. Bushit didn't lie DURING war, he lied us INTO war. This is a heinous a crime as has ever been comitted by a President of these United States. Nothing short of impeachment will do. Bush and Dick should be in the dock together, Nuremburg style. Orange jump suits for everyone complicit: Dummy Rummy, Rice-aroni, Colonoscopy Powell, Perle, Wolfoshitz- the whole stinking lot of the PNAC fascist bastards. Start at the top and work your way down through the cabinet and the republikan leadershit in the congress. All hail President Mineta (it might not work that way; I'm a little rusty on the order of succession). Start now.

That's it. That's the story. He did it and he lied about it. He pretended he didn't know who did it. But IT WAS HIM.

Just like Nixon. Just like Clinton. But more serious. He lied during a war.

That is the message.

Now let's get it out there loud and clear so the toothless red-state Jesus-freaks and their inbred relatives can digest it.

We don't need 800 pages of detailed legal jingo. We got a very simple story. The president lied so he could start a war, and he leaked to cover it up, and then he lied and lied and leaked and leaked and lied and leaked . . .

That is the story folks. Lies like a dog. Leaks like a Soviet commode.

Keep it simple. Pound it home.

AND IMPEACH THE MOTHERFUCKER

Bush said he would fire anyone involved in the Plame leak. We now know that Bush declassified the NIE specifically for Libby to share parts of it with journalists to counteract Joe Wilson's claims. Since Libby was the only one sharing the NIE information, Bush would have known that Libby was a prime suspect for the leak about Plame being in the CIA as well. Are we to believe that Bush was not able to find out if Libby was in fact the leaker. Give me a break. Bush knew. And he probably was involved in the Plame leak too.

"Indeed, the document indicates that the White House viewed Wilson's claims as very damaging to public support for the war, and that the steps it took to fight back were extraordinary. Libby testified that "this July 8th meeting was the only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the President's authorization that it be disclosed," the court filing states."

kinda blows a hole in the notion that he forgot that he told anyone about Plane because he was so dang busy.

I have some questions about this executive order business. First: what are the limits of an executive order? If the president issued an executive order declaring, say, Monday to henceforth be called Tuesday and vice versa would that be legal? Or, more appropriately, if the president issued an executive order declaring it legal to out to out undercover CIA operatives that he deemed worthy of outing, would that be legal? Or, to make matters really simple, what if he simply issued an executive order saying that the president no longer had to abide by the laws of the land or honor the consitution? In spite of the fact that this would directly contradict his oath of office, would it in fact be legal?

My point is: if it is illegal for Scooter Libby to declassify documents ("Valerie Plame is documented as an undercover CIA operative") how can it possibly be legal for the president to declare that he can do it whenever he wants -- or, not do it?

Secondly, March 2003 seems like a very convenient time to issue said executive order. The war had just begun and they knew full well that Wilson had completed his fact finding mission to Niger -- and what his conclusions were. We're only talking about seven months here: Wilson's report to the executive on Niger dated January; executive order granting executive fiat for declassifying documents on a whim dated March, ditto the month of the launch of the war; apparently "authorized" leak to press that sought to cow or discredit Wilson in June/July. What if, just what if, the issuance of the executive order was part of the conspiracy? That may be going pretty deep -- and likely it's something history won't ever really know -- but it doesn't seem implausible.

Who knows. Maybe Cheney/Bush explicity sat Libby down and gave him his marching orders. Are they that blinded by hubris? Could be. What more than likely happened was Cheney/Bush saying to Libby, like a good mob boss who knows the deal, "Hey, you take care of it. I don't want to know about it. Just do it."

-N.