Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

The Leaker in Chief's Double Standard
(cross-posted at firedoglake)

The Leaker in Chief can declassify at will, for political purposes, using national
security for his own presidential aims, but when a whistleblower
releases information that the U.S. government is sanctioning, not only the rendition
of prisoners to private horror palaces, but doing so for purposes of torture,
that's okay. People get the message and it screams out hypocrisy.

John Kerry has been proven right about so many things since the 2004 election,
that if the election were held today he'd win in a walk. He was exceptionally
clear yesterday on “This Week.” One of the Democratic Party leaders
on national security, Jane Harman, was equally succinct. The Democrats get what's
going on and after Tyler
Drumheller's interview last night, all of America
is starting to catch on.

“I don't know this woman, and I do not condone leaks of classified information,”
said Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, referring to the firing of Mary McCarthy.

Harman added that “while leaks are wrong, I think it is totally wrong
for our president in secret to selectively declassify certain information
and empower people in his White House to leak it to favored reporters so that
they can discredit political enemies,” she said on Fox News Sunday.

Harman was referring to White House staff members disclosing the classified
identity of CIA case officer Valerie Plame in 2003.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) echoed Harman, saying, “A CIA agent has
an obligation to uphold the law, and clearly leaking is against the law. And
nobody should leak.” But he added: “If you're leaking to tell the
truth, Americans are going to look at that, at least mitigate or think about
what are the consequences that you . . . put on that person.”

(snip)

Then drawing a parallel to the Plame case, Kerry said that with McCarthy,
“you have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the
truth, and you have no one fired from the White House for revealing a CIA
agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in Washington,
D.C.”

Democrats
Suggest Double Standard on Leaks
White House Aides' Actions Are Cited

The issue is really simple. George W. Bush, Deadeye, Libby and Condi
think they can leak information any time they want, because of some claim of
Republican righteousness that has no basis in reality. However, when other people
do it that's not oday. We get it and know it's wrong and even the traditional
media is picking up our points. They're hard to miss.