PressEthic

The relationship between a presidential administration, the public, and the reporters who serve as intermediaries is largely dependent on the leaks that come out of the White House. These leaks can be damaging to an administration's agenda, but the absence of leaks is also potentially dangerous.

Slate's Jacob Weisberg weighs the benefits and the pitfalls of leaks, particularly in the Bush administration. For most of the first six years of his presidency, Bush and his advisers kept a remarkably tight reign on all the information that left the White House. This has changed dramatically in the past several months, as "various officials are trying to extricate themselves from the Bush train wreck, elude the judgment of history, and advance their post-Bush careers. "

While Weisberg is impressed with the administration's ability to contain leaks and control the information, he asks, "Was he wrong to keep the lid on tightly while he could?"

Politics without leaks has some obvious advantages. In any White House, controlling your agenda and message becomes a central preoccupation. With unapproved leaks, officials spend their days responding to what turns up in the press, instead of talking about whatever they want to be talking about. ...

That said, a more open and fluid White House confers some distinct advantages. An executive who is too paranoid about disclosure can't have robust internal deliberations, because more people knowing means more people who might tell the press. A high standard of discipline and loyalty can also become a climate of fear and conformity, in which hunting down traitors becomes a self-destructive diversion. ...

Absent any seepage, executives lose needed sources of information. An American president lives in a bubble that grows more hermetic over time. Leaks are a way for him to hear what his gatekeepers deny him, including the truth. If the news is going to be bad, the decider is better off getting it sooner. ...

Some level of indiscretion is also essential to healthy relations between the presidency and the press. In reality, the interchange between reporters and "sources" is more of a two-way street than what is often depicted. Officials talk to reporters to get as well as give information, including about how major news organizations think and operate. And over time, if you don't make a practice of feeding journalists, journalists are sure to feed on you—see under Rumsfeld, Donald.

The Bush administration, in particular, was committed to the idea of a self-contained and isolated body which was both remarkably effective in the first six years and will also prove its demise.

For the Bush administration, a degree of mania about unauthorized disclosure seems to be inseparable from a general hostility to the free flow of information, to the public's right to know, and to the legitimate role of the news media in a free society.