The hyperbolic treatment of the portion of Patrick Fitzgerald's response to Libby's motion to compel in which a Presidential declassification of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to explain the truth to reporters has morphed into a Presidential leak against a "whistleblower" has been well—treated by others.  But to the contention that private disclosures to reporters were not the way—— a press conference should have been used, Cecil Turner, a poster at Just One Minute, offers the best, most definitive response. The Administration repeatedly tries to clear the record, and the media ignored those efforts, continuing (some to this day) to print Wilson's lies as truth:

The Administration corrected the record, repeatedly, through several conduits:

• Jul 7 (Fleischer): But the fact of the matter is in his statements about the Vice President —— the Vice President's office did not request the mission to Niger.
• Jul 11 (Rice): But going back to the President's speech, which is really the issue here, the President of the United States went up to give the State of the Union on the basis of information that was in his National Intelligence Estimate and that everybody thought to be true.
• Jul 11 (Tenet): The NIE states: 'A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of pure 'uranium' (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. [much more, including some of the caveats Waas&co. pretend weren't released]
• Jul 12 (Fleischer): This is in Wilson's report back to the CIA. Wilson's own report, the very man who was on television saying Niger denies it, who never said anything about forged documents, reports himself that officials in Niger said that Iraq was seeking to contact officials in Niger about sales.
• And then, on Jul 18, the NIE and press conference with all the caveats Waas&co. pretend weren't released.

They did a full—court press on this, with data that all turned out to be correct, and the media still bought Wilson's bogus story. Calling another press conference wasn't the ticket, and trying to get the Times to run some balance on their Kristof/Wilson disinformation was perfectly appropriate.

If you want to see "distributed intelligence" at work, Just One Minute is the place.Compare any discussion here with what you see on the media and you'll realize how much smarter a random group of your fellow citizens is than a  media selected group of "experts." 
 
Clarice Feldman   4 9 06