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Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz this morning sheds a little light on what’s behind some of the leaks we’ve seen out of the Bush administration in recent weeks – from the Donald Rumsfeld memo voicing doubts about the Iraq war to Stephen Hadley’s internal memo raising questions about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki:

Bush and Vice President Cheney have excoriated news organizations, especially the Times, for publishing national security secrets, but not this time. "I guess it's easier to rally the faithful with a cry of 'national security' than with a complaint that 'this is really embarrassing,' " Times Editor Bill Keller told the New York Observer.

But White House counselor Dan Bartlett says officials are indeed upset: "I haven't seen a more egregious leak in my time in government, timed to influence a very important meeting with a head of state."

David Greenberg, a professor of journalism and history at Rutgers University, says that "you see this kind of breakdown in an administration's unitary facade when there's a lot more internal dissension. As a rule, leaking occurs when people in an administration feel there's some kind of advantage to be gained in mobilizing public pressure, and journalistic pressure, against someone else on the inside."

Despite the intense desire on the part of the administration to present a unified front (not to mention a pretty good track record of doing just that), it appears these leaks are springing as the result of pressure from the growing unpopularity and criticism of the war.

Coincidentally, former CBS correspondent Murray Fromson offers further evidence of this message breakdown in a New York Times op-ed today. Fromson was a Vietnam War correspondent for CBS and finally unveils the source for a story which, according to the reporter, helped “gradually altered perceptions” of that war. It was a story reported first by the late New York Times reporter R.W. “Johnny” Apple Jr. and then by Fromson himself on CBS’ airwaves. Fromson writes that his source has released him from his pledge of confidentiality and tells the tale.

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