Bush has often claimed, contradicting his vow to protect the Constitution, that his job is protecting America. Clearly, he can’t handle either job: within hours of receiving advance copies of a new al Qaeda video, someone in the Bush administration with access to secret documents leaked the info to Fox News, destroying a carefully achieved surveillance route to al Qaeda.
Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, which provided the video to the administration, told the Associated Press, “Due to the leak, sources that took years to develop are now ineffective. A rare window into the world of al Qaeda has now been sealed shut.” Info in Fox News reports that followed confirmed, said Katz, that the material came from SITE, despite warnings not to distribute the info because of the danger of compromising methods.
White House spokeswoman Dan Perino quickly attempted to pass the buck or at least muddle the issue, saying the info was passed on to “the intelligence community” and expressing “concern.”
The Bush administration’s habit of selective leaks has repeatedly demonstrated that the White House priority list contains many entries in front of protecting anything other than Republican power. It is perhaps most terrifying that this administration can do such harm to real intelligence work and receive but brief attention from the press or the citizens whose safety is now compromised.
But there is a silver lining: Fox News will remain competitive, so the terrorists haven’t won yet.
