"I'm all for Leaking When It's Organized"

Speaking of the oddly-named Bmaz--which I was briefly yesterday--he has flagged an incredible snippet of a Politico interview with White House chief of staff Bill Daley on the subject of leaks. For those readers who thought Jack and I (here and here and here and here and elsewhere) were overstating or misstating the matter when we talked about the toleration of leaks as a matter of official or near-official policy, this discussion seems to me rather clarifying:

As I’ve noted previously, there has been a hue and cry against the critical and untenable use, and abuse, of secrecy by the United States government. There has always been some abuse of the government’s classified evidence for political gain by various administrations operating the Executive Branch, but the antics of the Obama administration have taken the disingenuous ploy to a new art form. Today, via Politico’s old fawning Washington DC gluehorse, Roger Simon, comes an unadulterated (sometimes x-rated) and stunningly tin eared and arrogant admission of what the Obama White House is all about, straight from the lips of Obama consigliere Bill Daley:

Rahm was famous for calling reporters, do you call reporters? I ask. “I call; I’m not as aggressive leaking and stroking,” Daley says. “I’m not reflecting on Rahm, but I’m not angling for something else, you know? Rahm is a lot younger [Emmanuel is 51], and he knew he was going to be doing something else in two years or four years or eight years, and I’m in a different stage. I’m not going to become the leaker in chief.” You’ve got others for that, I say. “Yeah, and hopefully in some organized leaking fashion,” Daley says, laughing. “I’m all for leaking when it’s organized.”

Oh, ha ha ha, isn’t that just hilarious? Bill Daley, and the White House he runs, are all for leaking, history bears out even the most highly classified government secrets, and doing so in an organized pre-planned fashion, when it serves their little self-centric petty political interests. But god help an honest citizen like Thomas Drake who, after exhausting all other avenues of pursuit within the government, leaks only the bare minimum information necessary to expose giant government waste, fraud and illegality because he feels it his duty as a citizen.

While I have no brief for individual leakers like Drake, Bmaz has a point. The White House chief of staff here is chuckling about organized leaking. And while I'm sure I will get emails pointing out that he was not talking specifically about the national security context, I stand by what I said before about the drones program: There's something corrosive, corrupt even, about having a covert program that is covert only for purposes of accountability and public debate but can be discussed freely--if anonymously--with all major news organizations whenever credit is to be claimed.