The Bush Administration really doesn't like investigations. It wants to make everyone else accountable to it, but it refers to be accountable to everyone else, including the people who elected it into office.

For example, right after the September 11 attacks, Congress wanted to form a committee to investigate the attacks. Bush stonewalled the creation of an investigatory committee until two years later. Then they wanted the president to meet with them -- alone and under oath -- as well as then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, also alone and under oath. Bush said, "No dice" in both circumstances. He agreed to allow Condie to speak to them, not under oath, and he deigned to speak to them, also -- not under oath and with VP Cheney. The September 11 commission concluded that the attacks were the result of multiple intelligence and communications failures, and also concluded that Iraq and al-Qaeda had no significant operating relationship, even if an Iraqi official met once with an al-Qaeda official in Czechoslovakia.

After Bob Novak published his column in The Chicago Sun-Times, the Justice Department opened an investigation. They seemed to think this was serious business. The Bush Administration told the public that they would look into it, but they haven't done their own investigation. Finally, now that a federal grand jury is looking into the matter, the Bush Administration has said that they will begin their own investigation.

Man, they really don't like it when people investigate them!

And yet the Republicans spent several years and a lot of taxpayer dollars trying to get Clinton on anything they could, even if they had to make up a crazy conspiracy theory like "Clinton killed Vince Foster." In the end, they tried to get him on charges of perjury, which he was found not guilty of, thank you very much.

And yes, I do think that endangering national security to "get back" at someone is a teensy bit worse than committing perjury. Clinton lied to a jury. Two folks in the Bush Administration jeoparadized national security. Which sounds worse to you?

If you'd like to look at the columns that started it all, I have reproduced the Wilson column, the Novak column that outs Valerie Plame, and the Novak column that outs her front company. If Bob Novak got flak to outing Valerie Plame, why did he go to the trouble of publishing the name of her front company three months later? CIA operatives tell everyone else they work for some other company; in the case of Valerie Plame, it was a fictional company called Brewster-Jennings. Not only did Novak destroy Plame's cover, but he destroyed the cover of any other CIA operative that claimed to work for "Brewster-Jennings," as well as anyone who had previously worked for "Brewster-Jennings" or anyone who had ever done business with someone from a company called Brewster-Jennings.

It's not just Valerie Plame whose cover was blown; Brewster-Jennings' cover was blown, and so was anyone who dealt with either the company or her. It has also hurt our ability to recruit informants from overseas since the potential informants know that our government is more than willing to rat out our agents for political gain.

The world is a safer place.