A Point of Contention on "Leaking"

[This is another letter I wrote to Salon. The topic was Libby's revelation that "Cheney told me that POTUS told him" to leak informaton from the NIE. The previous poster couldn't understand why everyone wasn't up in arms about this.]

I think maybe one of the reasons this isn't drawing the attention the last LW wanted is that it has a little bit for everyone to grab onto and back up their side. The Left obviously thinks this is evidence of lying and leaking, while the Right claims it proves nothing was leaked (because the NIE was at some point declassified).

But I need some help answering a question, and I think others do too. It's a question that people keep almost asking, some of the WH press corps came close with McClellan, but they can't seem to find the right words:

Is it technically possible for the POTUS (or anyone in a similar position of being able to classify/declassify intel) to leak? Is a leak defacto declassification? Or is there some official protocol for declassifying something-- a paper has to be signed, a memo sent out, the folders changed from top-secret red to help-yourself blue-- that until it's completed, anyone who talks is leaking?

If I throw a suprise party for my roommate and his mother clues him in, she's spilling my secret. But if I mention it, as the partygiver, am I leaking it and ruining the surprise, or changing the party to a non-surprise party?

It seems to come down to this mysterious protocol. What happens when the POTUS wants something declassified? Does he have to sign something? Tell other people? Buy new folders? If the answer is yes, then he CAN leak and probably did. If the answer is no, and the act of saying he wants it declassified makes it so and the rest is just tidying up the paperwork for posterity, then he didn't actually leak anything, he was just walking the line in a smarmy way. Like, god love him, our former leader questioning the definition of "is." Oh, Bill...

Settling that would help us have a better discussion, instead of each side saying it's their proof, which tends to shut conversation down, or at least bog it down into arguing over that very point.

But a better question might be-- is it even true? Cheney, who we know had a real bee in his bonnet about Wilson, apparently told Libby to go out and discredit Wilson (using either very selective quotes from a classified NIE, or outing his CIA wife, it's unclear at this time). Libby thought this was hinky and tried to make sure he covered his butt by asking Cheney for Presidential orders. Cheney went away and came back saying, "It's fine, he said it was OK."

Does anyone else find this strange? It's like an older sibling trying to get a younger sibling to do something stupid, who balks, and the older goes off and comes back and says, "Mom says it's OK, just do it." Or when you go to a car dealership and your salesman keeps disappearing into the back and returning with proclamations from a mysterious "manager" that we all know isn't even back there.

I think the more dangerous part of all this is Cheney appearing to run amok and possibly lying about what the POTUS did or did not approve. And because we're arguing over the rituals of declassification, he's getting away with it.