Questions, questions and more questions for Dear Leader

jamison foser at media matters poses a few questions...

[T]here are some questions the media should get to the bottom of:

* Is there a process the president must follow in order to declassify a document?

* If so, was that process followed in that case?

* If not, what authority, law, or executive order gives him the ability to ignore the normal declassification process? What is the specific language that gives him that ability?

* If the president does not have to follow any process and can simply declassify a document or information without telling anyone, that means that the rest of the government -- including, for example, the national security adviser, the secretary of defense, and the director of central intelligence -- will continue to think the material is classified. Is that conducive to effective government? Is it a tenable situation for the highest-ranking officials in our government to have different understanding of what is and what is not classified?

and here's some more...

Questions reporters should pursue:

* If Bush declassified the document before Libby met with Miller on July 8, 2003, why did it need to be declassified again on July 18?

* McClellan says the material was declassified because "[i]t was in the public interest that this information be provided, because there was a debate going on in the public about the use of intelligence leading up to the decision to go into Iraq. This is regarding prewar intelligence. And there was a lot of misinformation being put out. There were accusations being leveled against the president and against this White House and this administration that intelligence was misused or manipulated."

* Given that the administration thinks it is in the public interest to provide information relevant to the debate about the use of intelligence leading up to the decision to go into Iraq, will it now publicly release the one-page NIE summaries prepared for Bush that one "senior official" reportedly described as the "one document which illustrates what the president knew and when he knew it"? Or does the administration think only information that seems to support its contentions is "in the public interest"? The summaries reportedly told Bush that the Energy Department and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research believed that Saddam Hussein's "procurement of high-strength aluminum tubes" was "intended for conventional weapons" -- not, as Bush told the country, for the development of nuclear weapons.

and, while we're in the questioning mood, here's even more...

it's way, way past friggin' time that that worthless bag of crawford shit starts coughing up at least a half-assed response to the american citizens whom he purports to represent as president of the united states...

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