Hawke wrote:

Well, nobody in the White House is denying the allegations and their
spokesman Scott McClellan was telling everyone at the press conference today
that the leaking of classified information by Bush was legal. The reason for
that is because anytime the president decides to give out classified
information that automatically makes it declassified because as president
he's authorized to declassify information simply due to his position as
president. However, by making this excuse and admitting he was the source of
the leak to the NY Times he's also admitting the allegations by Libby are
true. Unfortunately for him, it also means he's guilty of lying when he said
he wouldn't tolerate leaks in his administration and anyone that did it
would be dealt with appropriately. I guess he meant that to apply to
everyone but himself.

Hawke

Information gets declassified all the time and released to the public
but it isn't called a "leak". Could it be that the leak label is used
to make a normal occurrence sound sinister?
GW