To my mind, what is most disturbing about this is not the actual leak or declassification or whatever the hell you want to call it. If that's what the Bush Administration did, if they were really declassifying in order to rebut an argument, why all the secrecy? Why not just stand up, say, that's right Mr. Wilson, there's your arguments, and in order to respond we're going to make this knowledge known. If it they were really acting in the best interests of the American people, then the American people would have understood that, wouldn't they? And yet, if anything else, this instance is indicative of the general tone this administration has always taken: that they know best. Because, you know, their track record is absolutely brilliant. These are the people who are so confident that Iraq is doing well, they tell us that we have to wait at least 10, 15 years in order to let history judge how successful they were. At least. Because you know US troops are going to be stationed there for at least that long. Certainly not in the numbers they're there now, but in a similar situation to Saudi Arabia.
Anyways, I digress. Back to Scott McClellan:
"There is a difference between providing declassified information to the public when it's in the public interest and leaking classified information that involved sensitive national intelligence regarding our security," McClellan said.
And who decides what the public interest is, Mr. McClellan? Isn't there something inherently abusable in the ability of an administration to suppress information about its own questionable policies (wire-tapping)? Can people really be so blinded by ideology and party preference that they would believe that no person (and certainly no member of the current administration) could be tempted to use such power for personal gain? Whatever happened to the basic civics class "checks and balances"? What happened to America?
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