Anwar al-Awlaki & Samir Khan

[classicman]

As Marcy Wheeler noted, “What was leaked to Savage is MORE classified than anything Bradley Manning is alleged to have leaked.” But as I added last night, given that these anonymous DOJ officials appear to have been on a mission to justify the President’s assassination order as legal and just, it’s probably inadvisable to hold your breath waiting for the criminal leak investigation to begin.

This highlights a vital point: the Obama administration’s chronic, self-serving and dangerous game-playing with classified information. The New York Times‘ Public Editor, Arthur Brisbane, had a good column yesterday on the administration’s obsessive secrecy when it comes to assassinations, drones and the killing of U.S. citizens. With regard to the administration’s refusal even to account for the legal principles it has embraced governing whom the President can order killed, the Public Editor writes: “it should be intolerable that the question goes unanswered.” But far worse, Brisbane notes that the administration manipulates and exploits its secrecy powers by leaking snippets to the media which glorify President Obama while concealing everything else:

After the drone strike, The Times and others lit up with accounts of the event, and unnamed government officials poured forth with comments. There was no mistaking the administration’s eagerness to put its antiterrorism success on display. . . . The administration invokes secrecy to shield the details while simultaneously deploying a campaign of leaks to build public support. For The Times, and its peers, this dynamic is beyond awkward: it gives the appearance that the government is manipulating them.

The reason that behavior “gives the appearance that the government is manipulating” the media is because that is the reality.
If a government employee leaks classified information that exposes wrongdoing on the part of the President or his aides or otherwise embarrasses them, he is prosecuted without mercy; at the same time, the President and his aides constantly leak bits of classified information (which remain classified) in order to benefit the President politically. Thus, when it suits them, they dole out snippets of information about how the Tough, Strong President killed the Bad Guy with brutal efficiency and bravery — and how his lawyers said it was permissible — but all the details necessary to assess the accuracy of those claims and any information which contradicts them remain suppressed, and if anyone exposes them, they face lengthy prison terms.

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