Saturday, June 9, 2012

Courtesy of Lee Smith writing in the Weekly Standard


*** A Stand Alone Newsbite ***

~ ~ ~

The Justice Department has launched an investigation into the White House’s handling of classified information.

* THE FOX (OR PERHAPS WEASEL) INVESTIGATING... er... THE FOX/WEASEL. (*SMIRK*)

The spur seems to have been the June 1 New York Times article by David Sanger, sourced to current and former U.S. officials, revealing sensitive details about the Stuxnet and Flame computer worms and other parts of the Obama administration’s cyber campaign to disrupt and spy on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

(By the way, none of the officials, according to Sanger, “would allow their names to be used because the effort remains highly classified, and parts of it continue to this day.”)

* SO EITHER SANGER IS MAKING IT ALL UP... OR... THE LEAKS HAVE BEEN COMING FROM THE ADMINISTRATION - LEAKS THAT COINCIDENTLY "POLL WELL" FOR THE ADMINISTRATION. (*SMIRK*)

Last week, legislators on both sides of the aisle deplored the administration’s inability, or unwillingness, to keep national security secrets.

Leaders of the Senate and House intelligence committees — Senators Saxby Chambliss and Dianne Feinstein and Representatives Mike Rogers and C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger - released a statement noting, “We have become increasingly concerned at the continued leaks regarding sensitive intelligence programs and activities, including specific details of sources and methods.”

* DO YOU MISS BUSH YET? I TELL YA... SOMETIMES... (*SIGH*)

In his June 8 press conference Obama tried to push back against the gathering storm. “The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive,” he said. “It’s wrong.”

* SO SANGER OF THE NYT IS LYING... MAKING IT ALL UP...???

The president and the New York Times can’t both be right.

If the president is [telling the truth], then the paper of record, which has so far seemed to be a willing receptacle for the administration’s leaks, must be printing fabrications.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

Last month the NYT detailed how the president directs U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen based on a classified “kill list” of terror suspects, a story based on information from “three dozen” of the president’s “current and former advisers.”

* MADE UP SOURCES...??? REALLY...???

[T]he latest Times article - on Iran - revealing what the administration has now tacitly acknowledged as a joint U.S.-Israeli program [of cyber-sabotage], looks to be merely the most recent installment in a campaign of intentional leaks damaging to our national security.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

All White Houses engage in political stagecraft, but this is something else. ... To craft a story about a heroic president and his leading part in American history, the administration rolled out the red carpet for moviemakers like Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, and gorged the working press with details. It was this information that disclosed the role of a local doctor whose efforts on behalf of an American clandestine operation earned him a 33-year sentence in a Pakistani prison.

* DISGUSTING! APPALLING! REPREHENSIBLE...!!! OBAMA SHAMES AMERICA.

That physician is not the only casualty of the White House’s vanity.

(*GNASHING MY TEETH*)

The administration boasted of a mole who had infiltrated Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and helped thwart an attack against the United States.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

The man was working for British and Saudi intelligence and details of his role not only damaged the ongoing operations of allied intelligence services, but also put the lives of the agent and others at risk.

Who knows how the information disclosed in the Times’s recent Stuxnet story may come back to harm our citizens and interests, or our ally Israel’s? But the message broadcast to friends, and potential friends, is clear enough. If you fail in your dangerous mission, you may die. If you succeed, you may earn a supporting role in the Obama reelection campaign.

In an excerpt from his just published book, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power, from which the cyber war story was adapted for the Times, Sanger recounts how Pentagon officials “fumed” when White House counterterrorism czar John Brennan apparently gave away “operational secrets never shared outside the tribe.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates confronted the senior administration official he perhaps believed in the best position to enact, or at least forward, his recommendation for a “new strategic communications approach.” And what was that strategic approach? asked White House national security adviser Thomas Donilon. “Shut the f— up,” said Gates.

In other words, Defense Secretary Robert Gates thought President Obama’s national security adviser was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the leaks. And if Donilon is responsible, the buck stops with President Obama.

To paraphrase the president, that his White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive. And it’s wrong.

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