Treason at the Top

Murray Waas is turning into a leading journalist in the War on Bush. Shit, it's easy - all he has to do is tell the truth.

Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.

Libby "further testified that he at first advised the Vice President that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller because of the classified nature of the NIE," the court papers said. Libby "testified that the Vice President had advised [Libby] that the President had authorized [Libby] to disclose relevant portions of the NIE."

One former senior government official said that both the president and Cheney, in directing Libby to disclose classified information to defend the administration's case to go to war with Iraq and in formally declassifying portions of the NIE later, were misusing the classification process for political reasons.

One former senior official said: "They [the leakers] might have tipped people to our eavesdropping capacities, and other serious sources and methods issues. But to what end? The information was never presented to the public because it was bunk in the first place."

They hang traitors, don't they? Hell, if they'll just please hang Bush, Cheney, et alia fer lyin' or stealing sheep or somthin', I'll forgive 'em the treason. Leave that for the history books. As long as they hang.

Update:

From Emboldened:

There you have it. Bush is now officially implicated in the chain of events that led to the outing of a CIA agent for political reasons. No one has proved that Bush ordered Plame's name released, but this story demonstrates how casual he was with classified information when it came to spreading his false justifications for war. If the uranium story was so important to Bush, imagine how angry he must have been at Wilson:

Of course I'm being overly optimistic when it comes to this Administration's accountability, but if Bush isn't going to fire himself maybe he'll extend himself the same lifeline that he did to Libby and allow himself to resign.

It'd save us all a lot of time and trouble if he'd hang himself as well.