1115.org

Is it the best of times, is it the worst of times?

The reason I ask is that it’s hard enough to decipher the garble-izer in chief at the best of times. What is one to make of the remarks he made yesterday, while announcing that he would declassify selected portions of the NIE whose leaked contents have embarrassed the White House and the Republican party for the last few days?

Let’s start with:

“Somebody has taken it upon themselves to leak classified information for political purposes,” Bush said. “I think it’s a bad habit for our government to declassify every time there is a leak.”

I think it’s a bad habit, but I can’t stop myself from doing it? I hate to bring it up, but being unable to stop yourself from doing what you recognize as bad or wrong or whatever quaint label you want to attach to it, that’s pretty much the definition of addiction, isn’t it? Is this what he’s addicted to now?

So somebody leaked this classified information for political purposes? Shame on them. It sounds a truly reprehensible act. But it does bring up the question of why this information was classified in to begin with. If the White House can turn on a dime and declassify it now – and for purely political purposes – was there any good reason for classifying it in the first place?

So what is more reprehensible: classifying this information in the first place for political purposes, leaking it for political purposes, or declassifying it now for political purposes? Is it still reprehensible to leak it for political purposes, if it was classified only for political purposes?

Then how about:

“You can read it for yourself,” Bush told reporters. “It will stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq — you know, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking Freudian slip. The leaked portions of the report do not address “the nature of the enemy”, if by enemy one understands al-Qaeda or the insurgents in Iraq or terrorists in general. If the leaked portions of the report speak to the nature of anyone, it is the White House itself. That’s the only group the leaked report puts in a bad light. Does President Bush at this stage of his presidency feel somewhat besieged, somewhat estranged from the American people? Does he think they regard him as the enemy (of truth and morality and American values, if not of America)?