Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

The Deep Throat Leak

The Deep Throat Leak,

Everybody is familiar about “Deep Throat” and how an insider leaked to the press illegal activities that brought down the Nixon Administration. This type of leak is different from a parting shot, or someone high in the Administration trying to fortify their case by airing it publicly. The Deep Throat Leak is one not designed to promote a point of view but one designed to sabotage a trend the leaker believes is contrary to the public good. In short such a leaker is more interested in disqualifying or arresting momentum than in advocating something different. It is a defensive rather than an offensive play in the game plan.

Two good examples are provided in Sanger’s book.

“Just after the first meeting to review the strategy, General McChrystal’s secret report recommending a multiyear counterinsurgency campaign was leaked to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post… McChrystal’s leaked report contained no troop numbers. He handed his troop requests--- in hard copy, no electronic versions…Soon these numbers were leaked too.”

These leaks raise the question of who in the Administration was so disenchanted by the option of expanding the war in Afghanistan that they would sandbag the Presidents inclination to “double down?” The book shows that any number of Obama’s advisors, felt expanding the war was a bad idea. Can you imagine somebody in the inner circle doing such a dastardly thing? This is serious treachery! It’s a betrayal of the worst sort. When this happened the red flag went up and the President should have gasped “Whoa!” It shows how our inexperienced chief executive got a big time wake up call on a growing problem--- one he failed to adequately address and tried kicking down the road. It would take Benghazi to fully realize the extent of the festering wound. By that time the cure was so toxic it created its own set of unintended consequences.