Last Thursday, indicted former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby testified to a grand jury that it was President Bush himself who authorized the leak of Valerie Plame's name in 2003. Plame, you'll recall, was an undercover CIA operative. Her husband, Joseph Wilson, was a former U.S. ambassador sent to Niger to investigate whether or not Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium there. Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times indicating that Iraq had not tried to purchase uranium from Niger and the administration was incorrect in asserting that it had. A few months later, Plame's identity surfaced, leading many to believe that the administration was somehow "punishing" Wilson for criticizing the administration.

For months, President Bush said that he didn't know who the leaker was, but if anyone in the White House was involved in the leak, they would be "dealt with." Last summer, when U.S. prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation moved closer to the White House, Bush broguht his standard of evidence up to a person who was convicted of wrongdoing. Shortly thereafter, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan refused to "comment on an ongoing investigation."

Hmmm.

The White House's response? McClellan finally came out of the cave of "ongoing investigation" and offered the White House's opinion on the matter: it wasn't illegal.

On Friday, the White House responded to the allegations by noting that Bush declassified a national intelligence estimate so that the public could have access to the same intelligence legislators had when they voted to authorize force against Iraq. The national intelligence declassification apparently included mentioning Plame, and thus what the administration did was not illegal, since the information about her identity was no longer classified.

McClellan on Friday proceeded to make a tortured (no pun intended) analogy between intelligence the benefits the public (which apparently includes outing an undercover CIA operative) and intelligence that threatens national security (such as when someone in the administration lets the American people know about illegal, warrantless, poorly justified wiretaps on Americans. Did I mention that the wiretaps are illegal and that no law professor at even the most podunk, two-bit law school would ever accept Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' legal reasoning in support of this program?).

So, it's okay for the administration to out a CIA operative, because that's in the public interest. But it's not in the public interest to let the American people know that their president is wantonly and flagrantly breaking the law? Apparently all presidents are equal, but some presidents are more equal than others.