Over at TPM, Josh asks whether President Bush's declassification of the Iraq National Intelligence Estimate was a one-off, a whim, rather than an official declassification.

Patrick Fitzgerald's characterization of Scooter Libby's testimony makes clear that this declassification was an inside deal that only Bush, V.P. Cheney, and Libby knew about:

According to defendant [Libby], at the time of his conversations with [Judith] Miller and [Matthew] Cooper, he understood that only three people - the President, the Vice President and defendant - knew that the key judgments of the [National Intelligence Estimate] had been declassified. Defendant testified in the grand jury that he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials - including Cabinet level officials - were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, the report about Wilson's trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003.