Washington Post editor defends 'good leak' editorial

RAW STORY
Published: Monday April 17, 2006

On a Sunday talk show, the deputy editor for the Washington Post's editorial page defended the paper's controversial take on President Bush's leak of classified material to counter war critics, RAW STORY has found.

"Well, I'm deputy editor of the editorial page, so let me first take a sip of my Kool-Aid...and step up and take one for the team," Colbert King said on WJLA TV's Inside Washington. "What we were trying to say is that the president had every right to declassify the information..."

"As journalists, we welcome information like this," King continued. "We welcome leaks."

On Sunday, the New York Times published an editorial entitled "A Bad Leak" which seemingly took aim at the the Post's "A Good Leak" from a week earlier.

"President Bush was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons," began the Post's editorial, "A Good Leak," last Sunday.

In contrast, Sunday's Times editorial, "A Bad Leak," begins with "President Bush says he declassified portions of the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq because he "wanted people to see the truth" about Iraq's weapons programs and to understand why he kept accusing Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons that turned out not to exist."

"This would be a noble sentiment if it actually bore any relationship to Mr. Bush's actions in this case, or his overall record," continues the Times editorial.

Last week, the CBS Public Eye blog reported on the widespread "debunkage" of the Post editorial that went on in the blogosphere beginning shortly after it was published. Critics were upset that it almost completely conflicted with a front page Post article from the same day (A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic).

On Sunday's show, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer hailed the Post's editorial as "brilliant" and "absolutely right," while National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg argued that "that's not what they were saying."

Excerpts from the transcript of Sunday's Inside Washington with Gordon Peterson:

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MR. PETERSON: Colby, I want to ask you a question about your newspaper, because the lead editorial in your newspaper on Sunday was entitled "The Good Leak," and it was about the leak of intelligence information that went through Cheney to "Scooter" Libby and then to Judy Miller and so forth. Why -- now, the president can do whatever he wants with intelligence. Why a leak and why call it a good leak?

MR. KING: Well, I'm deputy editor of the editorial page, so let me first take a sip of my Kool-Aid -- (laughter) -- and step up and take one for the team. What we were trying to say is that the president had every right to declassify the information and present to the public the information from the National Intelligence Estimate that supported that particular argument about the attempts on the part of the -- of Saddam Hussein to acquire --

MS. TOTENBERG: You can spit it out.

MR. KING: -- enriched --

MR. PETERSON: Uranium.

MR. KING: -- uranium. And that's what we said. It was good for him to do that in his defense, and there is nothing wrong with that. As journalists, we welcome information like this. We welcome leaks.

MS. TOTENBERG: You are a good soldier, Colby. You are a good soldier.

MR. KRAUTHAMMER: He's not only a good soldier, but he's absolutely right.

MS. TOTENBERG: But that is not what they were saying. (Cross talk.)

MR. KRAUTHAMMER: It was a brilliant editorial and it was absolutely right.

MS. TOTENBERG: Yeah, but that's not what they were saying in the editorial.

MR. KRAUTHAMMER: The president had the right to do it; he should have done it. He was undoing misinformation in the Wilson article, and he did it by releasing information. (Cross talk.)

MS. TOTENBERG: Correct information.

MR. PETERSON: Bart Gellman's story on the front page of The Washington Post documenting the systematic destruction -- attack upon Joe Wilson just was an inconvenience.

MS. TOTENBERG: And the correctness of Wilson's information.

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