Bush admits permitting the intelligence leaks except he calls it de-classifying.

President George W. Bush acknowledged on Monday he ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq to respond to critics.

I just have this vision of King George standing over a pile of intelligence documents waving a sceptor saying "I de-classify you, I de-classify you, I de-classify you." And then handing them to Scooter and telling him to have Judy Miller disseminate it as soon as possible.

But I can't help wondering why he would not have had an official press release which would contain the de-classified material that he believed would refute Joe Wilson's article. The only reason I can think of is that he did not want to be connected to the information. Why? Because it was wrong and he knew it? Because it was designed as a character assassination of Joe Wilson and he did not want his fingerprints on it? What other reason could it be?

"I will say this, that after we liberated Iraq, there was questions in peoples' minds about, you know, the basis upon which I made statements, in other words, going into Iraq," Bush said in his first words on the subject since it flared up last week.

Yeah we thought you were lying about the statements. I still do.

I love this next part.

"I wanted people to see what some of those statements were based on. I wanted people to see the truth. I thought it made sense for people to see the truth. That's why I declassified the document," he said.

But as we now know the de-classified document did not contain the truth. It contained falsehoods that had already been refuted by Bush's own intelligence gatherers. So by de-classifying the information what did he accomplish? Oh yeah, he destroyed Valerie Plames career.

Okay enough fooling around. We know that he did not de-classify anything! He told his staff to discredit Joe Wilson. He told them to do whatever it took to make him appear to have no credibility. He gambled on the fact that Judy Miller could not be forced to identify her source and therefore they could do this and still appear squeaky clean. They gambled and they lost!

But they did not count on Patrick Fitzgerald! They did not know at the time that this prosecutor would get to the bottom of what happened. But he is getting to the bottom. He is getting to the bottom, but he has not yet reached the bottom. However he is getting closer and I think that when he hits bottom he will find George W. Bush hiding in a corner yelling how he can do what he wants because he is the president, dammit! Of this I have no doubt.