National security, hello?

According to Scooter Libby, our president, George W. Bush, authorized staff to leak information from a classified military document--the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq--to the media. During wartime. Pretty bad, but W has proven to be enough of a screwup that this is not the hugest deal, in of itself, in the context of his entire administration to date.

What makes it a huge deal is the reason why he authorized the leaking of this information. Was it because the president thought the American people needed to know this vital information, so he declassified it and threw a big press conference to announce it? NO. Was it because it wasn't really that important or relevant to administration policy at the moment, so it was not necessary to keep it secret? NO.

Nope, he did it to cover his own ass. (And Dick Cheney's too, which means there was an awful lot of ass to cover.) If Libby's testimony is accurate, the president authorized the leak in order to restore the credibility of the administration's arguments for war on Iraq after Ambassador Joe Wilson's NYT op-ed arguing that Iraq had not tried to obtain nuclear fuel from Niger.

Petty, manipulative, self-serving, dangerous. Please, somebody make some of this stick.