Bumiller stated she's "totally in favor of" Libby's NIE leak, which included false info
SUMMARY: On the Chris Matthews Show, Elisabeth Bumiller noted that President Bush had ordered Vice President Dick Cheney to authorize I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to leak portions of the National Intelligence Estimate on prewar intelligence. Bumiller then stated: "I'm totally in favor of leaking of any kind." But Bumiller neglected to mention that Libby testified that he had been authorized to leak false information to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence.
During the June 18 edition of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller noted that President Bush had ordered Vice President Dick Cheney to authorize his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to leak portions of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on prewar intelligence to reporters. Bumiller then stated: "And just for the record, I would like to say I'm totally in favor of leaking of any kind. ... And I'm not going to denounce leaks as a reporter." But Bumiller neglected to mention that, according to special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Libby testified during the investigation into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity that he had been authorized to leak false information to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller in an effort to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence.
In an April 5 court filing, Fitzgerald alleged that Libby's July 8, 2003, meeting with Miller "occurred only after the Vice President advised defendant [Libby] that the President specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the NIE." Libby testified that he was authorized to advise Miler that the NIE stated that was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium." However as Media Matters for America previously noted, the information Libby was reportedly instructed to give Miller -- that the NIE stated that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium -- was not an accurate presentation of the NIE's findings. The NIE noted that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research called the claim "highly dubious" -- indicating that it was, at best, disputed within the intelligence community.
From the June 18 broadcast of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show:
MATTHEWS: Well, we know that [White House senior adviser] Karl Rove leaked to Matt Cooper of Time magazine, your magazine, [columnist] Joe [Klein]. And he also leaked to [syndicated columnist] Bob Novak, the original reporter of this whole story, the one who put the leak in the papers. The president said he would fire the person who leaked. Have we the shortest memory trail in the world that we now know the president has caught the leaker and he isn't going to do nothing about it except congratulate him? Am I being too strong here, Elisabeth, or do we have short attention here?
BUMILLER: No. I mean, yeah, we think people forget things in politics. And don't forget, this is the president who told Dick Cheney to tell Scooter Libby to please leak classified information from a national -- from a prewar intelligence estimate in July of 2003. So we know that the president certainly authorized one of these leaks. We don't know whether he talked to Karl about it or whether he authorized Karl Rove to do it, but we do know that there was an awful lot of leaking going on at this White House. And just for the record, I would like to say I'm totally in favor of leaking of any kind, and I'm not going to --
MATTHEWS: Because it helps.
BUMILLER: And I'm not going to denounce leaks as a reporter.
parading all the previously unkown supporters . Gives us the state version of " know thy enemy " warning in the Bible.
When the press condones the leaking of false classified information to justify an illegal invasion of a country that didn't attack us . . .
..unless the jouranlist is liberal. In that case, you want to make sure the NSA has their phone tapped.
The NYTimes had info on the illegal wiretaps from the NSA for well over a YEAR. Held on to that bit of information.
Bob Woodward knew about the Plame "leak" long before even Bob Novak, and he kept his confidence.
Yet, Matthews says "it HELPS". How does it help to have LEAKS if the reporters keep the information secret from the American people if the White House directs what is to be known?
Where are the "leaks" on Cheney's secret energy meetings?
What this White House "leaks" is both false and illegal, destined only to HARM THIS COUNTRY while covering this Administrations' collective asses.
And Bumiller is DELIGHTED with such leaks.
Ah, yes. Bumiller was a busy busy girl, happily printing the "LEAKS" on the run-up to the Iraq war, pushing the White House's storyline of LIES about WMDs and Saddam's links to Al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, the Administration and their pet Supreme Court are busy CLAMPING DOWN on "whistleblowers", the source of "leaks" that can actually PROTECT the American People from an avaricious and out-of-control GOVERNMENT. Can't have THAT.
I don't know what word the previous poster was getting at which started with H and ends in R and rhymes with "boar". The word that applies starts with W and ends with E, and describes our present "media" who are spread wide to service the needs of this administration, and don't give a passing thought to either INTEGRITY or the wellbeing of this nation.