Solutions, not selected leaks needed

The NYT responds to Bush's charges that the latest NIE leak, in which NYT had a hand, was political in it's purpose. The finger points right back at Bush, who then leaked selected portions for his own ends.

In 2002, the intelligence agencies completed a report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in less time. Mr. Bush also made selected passages of that report public to buttress his arguments for war with Iraq, most of which proved to be based on fairy tales.

Then, Mr. Bush wanted Americans to focus on how dangerous Saddam Hussein was, and not on the obvious consequences of starting a war in the Middle East. Now, he wants voters to focus on how dangerous the world is, and not on his utter lack of ideas for what to do about it.

The ball is in the White House's court. Bush can whine all he wants about playing politics, while he plays the game himself, but in the end he's the one holding all the cards. No one else gets to see the whole reports that he generally chooses to ignore, except for the parts that fit his agenda.

In any event, the time for blame is past. It's time to seek solutions and a national consensus on how to fix this mess. If our president truly cared about this country over his own political skin, he would lay the whole deck on the table instead of slipping all the aces up his sleeve -- again.