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A Leak and a Prayer
For President Bush, it’s a day to accentuate the positive and ignore the negative. While much of Washington was buzzing about the court filing indicating Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information, the president attended a prayer breakfast and then, back at the White House, touted upbeat economic news about job growth.
“My spirits are always uplifted when I’m in the presence of their excellencies,” Bush said in recognizing two cardinals at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
He also talked about the many people who tell him he is in their prayers.
“It’s really an amazing country where people walk up to you, say, Mr. President, I pray for you,” he said, adding he sometimes expects them to say, “I’d like a bridge. But instead, they say, I pray for you and your family. It uplifts us, and I want to thank you for that from the bottom of our hearts.”
After a short motorcade back to the White House, Bush headed to the Diplomatic Reception Room to discuss the new, positive economic numbers that showed the creation of 211,000 jobs in March. He added a pitch for congressional approval of tax cuts that now carry a deadline, and he vowed to veto any spending measure he believes would hurt the economy.
As he left the room, Bush ignored questions related to the federal court filing in which Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald revealed that indicted former White House aide Lewis Libby said Bush and Vice President Cheney authorized his leak of intelligence information to a New York Times reporter.
Minutes later, at a morning briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan used the “ongoing investigation” defense to decline to comment about Fitzgerald’s filing. But McClellan did not shy from making the point the White House wants to get out today: Portions of the National Intelligence Estimate (the document from which Bush reportedly authorized leaks) were declassified and released to the public 10 days after the leak.
Without directly saying it, McClellan used that information to bolster his case that anything that might have been leaked was not harmful to national security. He noted that leaks - specifically the ones that led to disclosure of the administration’s secret eavesdropping program - are harmful to national security.
“The president has been critical about the leaking of classified information,” McClellan said. “And that view has not changed. Leaking classified information could compromise our nation’s security. It’s a very serious matter. The president would never authorize disclosure of information that could compromise our nation’s security.”
After a contentious 10 minutes or so in the briefing room, McClellan said he had to get back to his office for meetings.
“But I’ll be back,” he said, referring to the scheduled afternoon briefing. “I know you all are looking forward to it like I am.”
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