Threats to String Up Truthtellers May Hang Republicans, Instead 
The campaign for the online archive was mounted by conservative publications and politicians, who said that the nation's spy agencies had failed adequately to analyze the 48,000 boxes of documents seized since the March 2003 invasion. With the public increasingly skeptical about the rationale and conduct of the war, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees argued that wide analysis and translation of the documents -- most of them in Arabic -- would reinvigorate the search for clues that Mr. Hussein had resumed his unconventional arms programs in the years before the invasion. American search teams never found such evidence. (NYT, 11/3)
President George W. Bush joked in March 2002 that those who leaked government information should be strung up by their thumbs, like prisoners in Guantanamo.At an Oval Office meeting with then-Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who was in the midst of a public storm provoked by whistleblower revelations, Bush said, "with a smirk on his face," that "If I catch anyone who leaks in my government, I would like to string them up by the thumbs ... The same way we do with prisoners in Guantanamo." (UPI, 11/3)
The White House responded to Goldenberg's claim with a classic non-denial denial.
"Our notes from the meeting show no such thing being said," White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino told United Press International. (UPI, Nov. 3)
We are left to wonder if the President never said that or if the White House notetaker was as careless as the administration official(s) who posted a nuclear bomb making manual on the Internet. The official response would be technically true even if someone blatantly erased a full description of the incident from the official transcript. Importantly, the response came from a White House staffer, not the President himself, thus giving the President an extra measure of insulation from accountability.
We needn't wonder too long. Bush's sadistic threat is consistent with six years of attacks on "leakers" by his administration and certain Republicans in Congress. The President and his supporters have repeatedly harassed and threatened truthtellers, individually, as with Joseph Wilson and Russ Tice, and en masse.
It has long been recognized that President Bush has a peculiar definition of "leaker." Apparently, it applies only to people who report wrongdoing, not to those who engage in wrongdoing. And, it never, ever, applies to White House staff. It's safe to say President Bush won't be stringing up I. Lewis Libby by his thumbs any time soon.
Maybe it's only coincidence, but it's interesting to note that many of those in Congress most opposed to whistleblower disclosures - Rick Santorum being a noteworthy example - are now struggling to remain in their bully pulpits after the mid-term elections. There may be a lesson in this for politicians who think that integrity and accountability are expendable. Indeed, voters seem poised to send politicians an overdue message on November 7: integrity matters.
KEYWORDS: George W. Bush, leakers, Guantanamo, Jean Chretien, Edward Goldenberg, Iraq, WMD, nuclear bomb, John Negroponte
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