That's not the headline the editors at the Associated Press stuck on Jennifer Loven's article that's hot on the wires now, though maybe it should of. Loven ledes,

President Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, be the one to disseminate the information, an attorney knowledgeable about the case said Saturday.

Bush merely instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House. The vice president chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide, the lawyer said. [emphasis added]

Certainly President Bush has plausible deniability in this case, as he might not have known for certain how the information in question would be leaked or who would be doing the actual leaking; in a court of law, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove that he directly authorized Libby to leak. That said, politics is not fought in the court of law (at least it usually isn't) but rather in the court of public opinion, and the clear implication from this AP article is that the President, in one way or another, authorized a leak of once classified information.

It's important to note that it may be legal for the President to declassify documents -- or portions of documents -- without going through normal channels and then having one of his aides pass it on to certain reporters. But again, what flies in the court of law does not always fly in the court of public opinion, and the admission that the President cherry-picked intelligence -- which was later proved to be wholly untrue -- in order to make his case to go to war can only further alienate voters on the fence over whether America should have invaded Iraq and whether America should continue to occupy the Middle Eastern country.

Make no mistake, today's news is not good for the President. No, it's a sign that he has been backed into a corner, his only temporary salvation coming from the admission that his detractors were in fact correct in their assertion that he selectively used intelligence to hype an unnecessary war.

Update [2006-4-8 21:31:7 by Jonathan Singer]: To make matters worse for the administration, The New York Times' team of David Sanger and David Barstow report that the information the President authorized to be leaked "was already being discredited by several senior officials in the administration."