Horrible

John Kass goes after Bush as Commander in chief of leaks, comparing him to the Arkansas Word Splitter.  But look at it this way: The nasty boy Joe Wilson, a schemer of the first water, goes public in that East Coast Paper of ill repute, initials NYT, with public statement misleading public about what's going on with Sadaam and uranium, etc., and Bush wants to call him on it. 

 

Does he go on air with a fingering of Schemer Joe, whose own official report gives the lie to his East Coast Paper report?  No, it's beneath him, but in the war of words that hurt the war effort he should be shot down.  It's done to him via Cheney and a man named Scooter, though that's what Prosecutor Fitz has to prove (I think: it get murky here, what with ancillary charges having moved front and center), and to defend self Libby wants to know what Fitz has and describes what he wants, and it says President B. has declassified stuff to shoot down bad info -- in the usual Wash. way, without which East Coast Paper and others could not survive, giving it to reporters on background w/permission to use. 

 

It's a horrible thing, to be sure, that there's a political angle here -- Wilson Scheming, East Coast Paper loving it, etc., White House countering -- but such things do happen, and Wash.-based and other reporters will simply have to live with it, shocked though they may be.  In fact, the whole thing may be a wake-up call to them to play things down the middle and stop grinding axes, but I doubt it.