Boys and Girls, We Have Another Scandal on Our Hands

The Bush administration is not only incompetent at war and disaster relief, it also does a poor job of handling classified information. It's already known that President Bush and VP Cheney refuse to let their handling of classified information be inspected by The Information Security Oversight Office. Today, Henry Waxman revealed information indicating that Bush and Cheney's offices are extremely lax in handling classified information. (Quote via TPM)

In another example described to my staff, a junior White House aide reported that a senior assistant to the President improperly disclosed “Sensitive Compartmented Information” to the junior aide, even though the aide had no security clearance. Although SCI is the highest level of security classification, the White House Security Office took no steps to investigate or take corrective action. ...

One example cited by the officials involved security procedures in the White House sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF). The security officers said that Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson habitually brought their Blackberry devices and cell phones into the SCIF in the White House Security Office in violation of the rules. The officials said that (White House Security Office head James) Knodell and (WHSO Deputy Ken) Greeson also allowed others, such as visiting White House personnel, to bring their Blackberries and cell phones into the SCIF. According to the officials, these improper practices were allowed to continue even after security officers
repeatedly informed Mr. Knodell and Mr. Greeson that the practices violated security rules and set a poor example.

Why would an administration obsessed with secrecy do such a poor job of handling classified material. Actually, I would bet it's because they're obsessed with secrecy. Bush administration personnel have been so eager to classify everything that they have no sense of a distinction between what needs to be kept secret and therefore handled carefully and what doesn't. A great deal of political information, scheduling logs, and personal communication has been given the highest clearance. But none of it is important to any security other than the Bush administration's political security. What appears to have happened is that Bush officials are treating real national security information with the carelessness that they're treating the political information that they've classified.

And now, they've been caught red-handed. Pretty soon, the Bush administration's approval rating might fall below the ratings for Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. Maybe they should bring Tom DeLay in as a political consultant.