Libby sings

Remember the Plame case? I’m sure you also remember that this “was definitely going to look bad for Rove” and “might even get Darth Cheney” because of the testimony of I. “Scooter” Libby. We learn that Libby sings and, boy, does he have some pipes:

Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff has testified that President Bush authorized him to disclose the contents of a highly classified intelligence assessment to the media to defend the Bush administration’s decision to go to war with Iraq, according to papers filed in federal court on Wednesday by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.

Read the whole article, esp. if you need a run-down of what has been going on all these long months. [ETA:] Booman has a great breakdown and timeline of the whole affair, check it out.

It is a felony for a government official to reveal the name of an undercover CIA operative. By the look of the article and the few mentions of "by authorizing the disclosure of classified information, [Bush] had in effect declassified the information", apparently the WH is going to defend this by saying “Bush said it’s ok, so it’s ok”.

What was it his dad, the former President and former CIA Director said? Oh yes:

“I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.”—August 20th, 1999