Shuster, Olbermann Misconstrue Libby Testimony-- Deliberate or Not?

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On Thursday's "Countdown," we learned from Keith Olbermann that:

• The CIA leak investigation roars back to life. Scooter Libby claimed he had been authorized to reveal classified information, authorized by his boss, the vice president.


• Newly disclosed documents indicating that the vice president's former chief of staff already has testified that he was authorized by his superiors to disclose classified information to reporters in order to make the a case for war in Iraq...


• If he's defending himself by saying, Well, he did, and saying the vice president told him to, because that's not really germane to this case, did he just throw the vice president of the United States under the proverbial bus?

Note how the wording of these statements leaves the impression that the authorization claimed by Libby included the Plame leak. Did it? What is it that Olbermann isn't telling us this time?

"We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors," Fitzgerald wrote.

Compare what Fitzgerald actually wrote with how Olbermann reported it. According to Fitzgerald's letter, Libby stated he had been authorized to release information about the National Intelligence Estimate, a report prepared by the various intelligence agencies for the President. (The NIE was itself declassified and released openly to the press days later.) For all his tabloid sensationalism, Olbermann never once tells his viewers that this quote from Fitzgerald is about the NIE, not an all-encompassing permission slip to willy-nilly release "information". And certainly not any kind of authorization to leak the name of Valerie Plame.

But there was more to the report. David Shuster, an NBC correspondent, was brought in to give the details and analysis. Now Olbermann's obfuscations surely would be clarified.