Only Himself To Blame

President Bush can make all the speeches he wants and his supporters can pass as much blame around as they like, but this whole mess is Bush's own fault.

Before we went to war in Iraq, Joe Wilson wrote an article saying that the Niger yellowcake story (that Bush included in a State of the Union address) was false. We now know that Bush was behind the drive to discredit Wilson. While this isn't an impeachable offense, it lead to the tactics that resulted in the NYT story that outed Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.

So while Bush might not be indicted for outing Valerie Plame, he is certainly not helping his credibility. Why, because he has repeatedly said that he's not fond of leaking or leakers.

Now, if this particular leak is a good one, like some claim, what was its purpose? Even Bush's defenders can't seem to get their facts straight on this one. Shouldn't there be a difference between declassified information and leaked information? Looking at some of Bush's old quotes, he doesn't seem to think the two were the same. If he did, couldn't he have held a press conference the day after Wilson's article and say "Don't believe this guy, here's our version of what's going on?" What's so hard about that?

But no; they had to be sneaky about it. Otherwise, the public would have actually been paying attention back then and the case for war would have been weakened. Nevermind that Joe Wilson was right, or that his wife was working on counter-terrorism, or that the case for war was based largely on the assumption that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were roommates in college.

Oh well. Bottom line is Bush participated in the very thing he had condemned: leaking information. And from what I can tell, the only good leaks are ones that help your administration. But once again, the half-ass planning of this particular administration comes back and bites them in the rear. And just like the public blowup over the Dubai Ports deal, Bush has no one to blame but himself.

Bush and his people should really start documenting their statements better, in order to keep track of what they've said. Or course, when you tell the truth, you don't really have to document at all.