Guessing Game Results: The Meta-Leak

Yesterday we asked you for guesses as to the identity of the senior administration official who confirmed, by email to the New York Times, “that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq, in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein.”

In the comments to the post, you offered a number of (mostly joking) answers. By email, we received a few more serious responses:

• Stephen Hadley, National Security Adviser

Perhaps; he’s got to do something to earn his $160,000 (even if it’s only $40,000 more than the $120,000 pulled down by outgoing White House pastry chef Thaddeus DuBois).

• “Hmm, well, sorta leaves Scott McClellan with the old ball, doncha think? Except it was email. Not sure the Scotster knows about email yet. More likely it was Karl Rove, having been thumped on the back of the head by little george (“fix it, turd blossom”). The fact that whoever it was used email means (a) they were out of town somewhere, not at a knowable phone number, and (b) in full panic mode, as the entire Administration is these days…”

Certainly possible. But we find this submission the most persuasive:

• “Definitely Dan Bartlett. He’s the one charged with talking to major news organizations like the New York Times, and this is just the type of ‘information give’ that he would handle. And by the way, I wouldn’t call it a leak. It’s a pet peeve of mine when the term ‘leak’ is thrown around too loosely. Leaks are unauthorized, and if Bartlett was doing this, it surely was authorized — he would have checked with others in the White House (e.g., Bolten, Card, Miers) before talking to the Times.”

This sounds convincing to us. This does raise the question of who will pick up Bartlett’s “information-giving” portfolio if he leaves the White House soon, as has been rumored.

Of course, some of you may not care who talked to the Times, sharing this reader’s reaction: “I don’t even think it really matters who leaked. After reading that article, I think they’re just all equally as incompetent!”

Earlier: Senior Administration Official Guessing Game: The Case of the Meta-Leak

READ MORE: Andy Card, White House, andrew card, anonymous sources, blind items, bush, dan bartlett, george w. bush, guessing game, harriet miers, josh bolten, leaks, plamegate, scott mcclellan, senior administration official guessing game, senior government officials, stephen hadley

Senior Administration Official Guessing Game: The Case of the Meta-Leak

This “leak about a leak” is prime fodder for a Senior Administration Official Guessing Game:

A senior administration official confirmed for the first time on Sunday that President Bush had ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq in an effort to rebut critics who said the administration had exaggerated the nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

But the official said that Mr. Bush did not designate Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr., or anyone else, to release the information to reporters.

The statement by the official came after the White House had declined to confirm, for three days, Mr. Libby’s grand jury testimony that he had been told by Mr. Cheney that Mr. Bush had authorized the disclosure. The official declined to be named, because of an administration policy of not commenting on issues now in court.

Here’s an additional hint from the article: “The official responded briefly via e-mail on Sunday to questions from The New York Times.” This rules out old-school, techno-phobic officials like Donald Rumsfeld and Michael Chertoff, who don’t use email.

Any thoughts on who the Times source might be? Post your guesses in the comments to this post, or send them to us by email (subject line: “Guessing Game”).

Bush Ordered Declassification, Official Says [NYT]

READ MORE: White House, anonymous sources, blind items, guessing game, leaks, plamegate, senior administration official guessing game, senior government officials

Senior Administration Official Guessing Game: Damage Control

Which of this week’s totally shocking surprising Earth-shattering unexpected new reveals did you like more: the memos that showed Bush was set on war in January ‘03 (WHAT?!?) or this here that shows everyone knew the aluminum tubes were bullshit long before they used them in the SOTU and pinned a rationale on ‘em (NO WAY!)?

Being generally unshockable types, we’re more intested in the identities of these two:

“Presidential knowledge was the ball game,” says a former senior government official outside the White House who was personally familiar with the damage-control effort. “The mission was to insulate the president. It was about making it appear that he wasn’t in the know. You could do that on Niger. You couldn’t do that with the tubes.” A Republican political appointee involved in the process, who thought the Bush administration had a constitutional obligation to be more open with Congress, said: “This was about getting past the election.”

So — we have a couple ideas, but we’d like to hear yours. If you can divine any clues from those descriptions, let us know who you’re thinking and why.

Insulating Bush [National Journal]

READ MORE: aluminum tubes, guessing game, iraq, political appointees, senior government officials, war