Why do people in this thread keep on insisting that “Bush authorized Plame leak”? Could it be that that is the thread title? The OP has, btw, acknowledged the mistake, and it was an honest one since that’s the way the story was originally reported. But let’s be clear: The information in this news story cannot be used to draw the conclusion that “Bush authorized Plame leak”.
Do we need to get a mod to edit the title?
Of course the rules are very different. As you keep insisting, the President has the technical authority to do it. No one else does.
That is what you meant, isn’t it? It’s not? Oh dear.
Actually, I suspect that Congress knew very well it might be necessary to do such a thing some day, in order to protect the nation’s interest. The men and women that enter into such roles as intelligence operatives know that they may get burned someday, expendable, for reasons of national security.
What they do not expect, and do not deserve, is to be expended for reasons of internal partisan politics. That’s very wrong. Unfortunately, someone has to be given the ultimate authority to decide what constitutes proper reasons, and in this case, the person that has that authority is alleged to have misused it. That’s despicable, but since he’s the guy the law permits to make those decisions, it’s not illegal.
You know, you’re right. The President made a special law just for him just about the time he leaked information. A very special order that said “everyone must follow the law of the land, except me.” and I refuse to take it at face value.
Especially when, in the very law he wrote, he says
following close behind this pretty little dodge:
Ah, this only counts towards classifying in formation and not reclassifying it.
The President broke the law in a very ugly and Unamerican way and I will not nod my head in assent just because he covered his ass so beautifully.
I am much reassured! If the relevent statutes are disected with excruciating exactitude, it can be shown that no laws were broken, the relative flexibility of statutes being squarely within the perogatives of a Unitarian executive.
Ah, remembrance of things parsed!
(Had enough yet? No?)
“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Proust?”
(Now you’ve had enough!)
I’ll kindly direct you to my original post in this thread, which makes no mention of anyone on this message board being an apologist. After all, there are other forums out there on the intarweb, y’know?
That said, I still find much giggleworthiness in the reflexive efforts of some Dopers to try to frame the issue in a way to minimize the damage to this President. Not that I’d expect anything less, really. 
So you’re saying, in effect, that he broke what YOU WISH was the law, not the actual law.
Who the fuck cares what you wish the law was? You think we can haul someone into court and indict him for breaking your vision of what the law should be? You want to have a legal system that can punish people for breaking the “feeling” of the law?
HE DID NOT BREAK THE LAW. It’s effectively IMPOSSIBLE for a President to violate an Executive Order, since he can create exceptions to executuve orders whenever he damn well pleases. Do you get that, or not?
So you are saying, in effect, that the president can do whatever he likes, whenever he likes and all he has to do is write an executive order to cover his ass and. . . like magic-- no law was broken?
Really? I suppose that’s why Nixon retired, just to make sure all the Presidents after him won’t have to live under the rule of law like the rest of us.
In the court of public opinion, the one we’re in, damn straight you can. That’s how it works, bud. Although I must admit I share the general amusement at your strenuous “If the President does it, that means it is not illegal” argment that he asserts and you support.
I was ready to give you the benefit of the doubt until you posted this.
There are many, many things that the president cannot legally do. This, however, is not one them. Why is that so hard to understand? You simply threw us a strawman instead of admitting you were wrong.
And I’m still waiting for your evidence that the famous declassification procedures were not followed in this case. I think this the 3rd time I’ve asked you to back up your claim. Can you?
True enough. But I hope you’ll forgive me for drawing the inference that you meant this thread. You said:
Nothing in there refers to other places, although I admit nothing there specifically excludes them, either.
You are damn liar, Elvis. Biggirl is explicitly talking about the legality of this action, and you know it.
No.
An Executive Order does not override a law, passed by Congress. But in this case, there is no law, passed by Congress.
Well, actually, there is. The law Congress passed says the President can do whatever he wants. If Congress had passed a law saying, for example, that once information has been classified, it cannot be declassified for ten years, then no Executive Order could declassify anything sooner.
In this case, there is no Congressional law. The only “law” that applies is an Executive Order, and THE PRESIDENT CANNOT VIOLATE AN EXECUTIVE ORDER.
Got it now?
Of course. Why the hell put one’s ass on the line over something that big unless you KNOW you won’t get in trouble for it? Maybe he can compare notes with Ken Lay.
You are a damn idiot. I’m not talking about Biggirl; I’m talking about Bricker’s view.
:wally
The President can classify and de-classify information as he pleases, because Congress has said that he is the authority for classifying and declassifying information, becasue he is the head of the executive branch. Anyone who makes those decisions on a day-to-day basis answers ultimately to him. So the President cannot create a document so classified that he himself cannot declassify it.
Bricker’s “view” is a response to **Biggirl **saying the action was illegal. Don’t bother sending another post my way on this subject-- you won’t get any more repsonsed from me. You are a liar, and not worth the effort.
Did he “declassify” it? Wouldn’t there need be some sort of document relative to that, some sort of official Presidential okey-dokey? Sometihing in writing? No? So, he can just say “Sure, Big Dick, go right ahead!”? How about if Dick says “Mother may I?” and GeeDubya just nods? Or winks?
I again direct all to this part of President Bush’s own Executive Order:
That says “In no case”. Not, “In no case, unless the President wants to hurt a political adversary.”
Help me try to understand what the administration’s likely spin on the President’s completely repugnant intellectual dishonesty will be.
The President flatly stated more than once that he would fire anyone who had leaked classified information related to the case.
Though at this time it would seem that he himself gave the OK for specific and very selective information to be divulged to one reporter for purely political ends, the President, by virtue of his powers, did not technically leak any classified information.
The President was able to look the American people in the eye when Fitzgerald’s investigation was first announced, and *very clearly imply * that he wouldn’t tolerate information like this getting out to reporters in a, would it be fair to say, a leak-like fashion? He was able to do this without a thought to the disingenuousness involved here, to say nothing of flat-out misleading the people he had sworn to serve, because, you see. . . well. . .he wasn’t leaking!
One word, Mr. President (to paraphrase Will Farrell): Leakery.