What! You Mean He Can Do That?

Liberals amazed that Commander-in-Chief has authority to declassify information

The liberal media watchdog (that pooch can't be getting much exercise) group Media Matters for America shrilly complains that CNN and Fox reporters "accepted without question [the] claim that Bush's NIE 'declassification' was legal".

There's a good reason they did. MMA should have waited so they could have included such bastions of conservative propaganda as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times in their complaint.

From the New York Times: "The president has the authority to declassify information..."

From the Los Angeles times: "Bush, as commander in chief, has the authority to declassify information."

From the Washington Post:

Legal scholars and analysts said yesterday that the president has the authority to selectively declassify intelligence reports But they also said it was highly unusual for senior officials at the White House to take such an action so stealthily, without notifying Cabinet officials or others in the administration, including the CIA authors of the National Intelligence Estimate.

Unusual threats often call for unusual responses. It's also highly unusual for the President's administration to come under attack from a cabal of renegade bureaucrats within the Central Intelligence Agency.

Also posted at The Jawa Report and Vince Aut Morire.