He claims he has an Executive Privilege to declassify information that is otherwise identified as classified for purposes of protecting national security.
Cheney did con DumbGeorge into issuing an Executive Order that allows the Vice President to classify and declassify some information -- but for the Vice President, all of his authority is limited to when he is "acting in performance of executive duties". Although neither this executive order amendment by Bush nor the original Executive Order defines "executive duties".
It is highly unlikely a court would consider the Vice President's order to his own shoe-licking underling to release information indicating that Ambassador Wilson cannot possibly be a credible source because although he was a card-carrying Republican and appointed as an Ambassador by Bush himself, his wife was not at home walking around barefoot and pregnant. She had a career. A prestigious and top secret career as a covert CIA agent.
Cheney, and since it has all the slime of a Rove idea, most likely Rove himself, must have pondered long and hard to find some way to discredit a man with the credentials -- long standing and high ranking Republican credentials-- of Ambassador Wilson. They succeeded in getting the Fox News liars to try to make John Kerry look like a sissy (e.g., check out the photos they like to show of him in his bathing suit windsurfing and fumbling a football -- that and they tried to make his perfectly charming and quite brilliant wife out to be some sort of evil witchdoctor woman who controlled Kerry's thoughts and actions) so they thought they would try to do the same to Wilson.
He was retired after all and his wife was still working. That made him a sissy right there in the neo-cromagnan minds of Cheney and Karl "Ugly Dog" Rover. (He used to be called Ugly Dumb Dog but that was too difficult for him to remember or spell so he shortened his own nickname to "ugly dog". What kind of loser would do that? Rover. He isn't much good at anything else.)
So they decided to let the world know that his wife had a job, he didn't and the only reason he went to Niger and investigated the rumors about Iraq trying to buy yellow cake uranium was because his wife had gotten him the assignment.
Never mind that the Cheney/Rove story wasn't true. That never bothers them. Sometimes they appear so unethical that they seem pathological in the way they lie and completely ignore facts or reality. They are only good at making up silly false arguments that are made up of short words that the reporters on Fox News probably cannot spell, but they may be able to read them off a teleprompter without making too many mistakes.
By the way, with Rover's history of unethical acts, of lying to the public, of lying and cheating his way through life because he wasn't capable or competent enough to get a real job -- why would anyone like George Bush -- who has so determinedly tried to fool himself into being important like his Dad and his brother -- want that sort of bottom scavenger anywhere in his organization? Does W realize that he was incapable of accomplishing anything by his own merit? Does he know that he is viewed as ignorant by most of the world? Most people who go to Yale and Harvard like to think of themselves as pretty smart. They are particularly interested in having other people think of them as smart. Just the sight of someone like Rover makes me want to run the other way. He is repulsive.
I wonder what it is like to know that everyone knows you are a fake and that you are likely to be written up in history books as the worst President ever? He wanted a job so he could show his Dad he could succeed. That he was smart enough, that he was good enough....But he isn't! That is the part that is so amazing. He knows it. Most of the world sees it. His supporters are just too busy counting their money to even care. I have never bought a friend. Bush and Rover have no friends except the ones they buy.
I cannot decide which one of them is the worse of the bunch -- Cheney, Rove, Bush, or Knollenberg. Wouldn't you have to be evil to collude with evil?
Although I rarely watch Fox News because I think it is highly unethical for any journalist to express his opinion while spouting what is supposed to be "news". Even the faux journalists that were hired to just look good on camera, don't write any news stories themselves, they just read what shows up on the teleprompters - to provide personal commentary under the guise of news. Does anyone remember when a news cast had a minute or so reserved for editorial comment? They would announce it as editorial and have the person speak in front of a sign saying it was an editorial. That was ethical. I don't care if they want to have a show that is all opinion.
An unethical network hires unethical people and reports on unethical politicians. It must be difficult to keep their lies straight sometimes.