Eenspector Georges W. Clouseau Wahs Naht On Zee Case!

"To assist the Committee in its investigation into these issues, I request that you provide the Committee with a complete account of the steps that the White House took following the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's identity (1) to investigate how the leak occurred; (2) to review the security clearances of the White House officials implicated in the leak; (3) to impose administrative or disciplinary sanctions on the officials involved in the leak; and (4) to review and revise existing White House security procedures to prevent future breaches of national security." Text of part of letter dated March 16, 2007 from Henry Waxman, U.S. Rep., (D-Los Angeles) to Joshua Bolten, White House Chief of Staff following yesterday's "Plame" hearings.


George W. Bush must have great fun at Henry Waxman's expense. Behind closed doors, of course, with the other Administration bullies around to regale, Bush must search his meager vocabulary for the stinging words of derision appropriate to this bald, diminutive, buck-toothed, bespectacled Jewish son of a Los Angeles pharmacist who represents his native city in the House of Representatives. It is true that Waxman, who does indeed look like a rabid chipmunk wearing a pair of magnifying glasses, is not possessed of movie star looks.

However, after watching Mr. Waxman preside over the Valerie Plame hearings yesterday morning, televised in their entirety on C-Span, I think Georgie Boy had better laugh while he can. He is in deep, deep trouble. Of course, Bush is always in trouble, but this is different. Not to be excessively dramatic, not that I would say something corny like "mark my words." But -- mark my words. In the Watergate scandal, it was the almost incidental disclosure by Alexander Butterfield, a White House subordinate, that Nixon taped everything said in the Oval Office that led to Nixon's disgraceful departure. Bush may just have had his "Butterfield Moment." Friday morning, we heard from Dr. James Knodell, Director of the White House's Security Office. Dr. Knodell clearly did not want to be there. I would describe his facial expression as that of a man who has been severely constipated for two weeks and felt, just before being sworn in, the sudden and extreme urge to go. He apparently did not know he would be appearing before the Committee until Thursday, when the White House must have concluded they had to send somebody to answer questions about the White House's "response" to leaks of classified information (Waxman would not take no for an answer), and sent this mild-mannered bureaucrat who used to think he had one of those enviable government jobs. Good pay, no responsibility.

Dr. Knodell had an awful morning, because he saw, after a few game evasions, that he was going to have to tell the truth. Fortunately for him, he's a career civil servant with, no doubt, a secure pension. He's going to be unpopular back at the White House, where loyalty always trumps honesty and ethics. It was, he admitted, standard procedure to investigate leaks of classified information from the White House. Executive Orders required that anyone involved in the leak of classified information report himself to Knodell's office. It was also standard procedure to initiate an investigation where it was suspected that White House personnel were involved; since Novak's column of July 14, 2003, identified "two Administration officials" as his sources, and since the Washington Post followed soon after with a description of "two top White House" aides talking to about six reporters, this was not exactly a leap of faith.

Knodell grimly admitted that there was never any investigation whatsoever. No one turned himself in. No one lost his security clearance except Scooter Libby, upon indictment. Not a single piece of paper exists in any investigatory file, because there is no file. The Director of White House Security, charged with protecting classified information from unauthorized disclosure, has not done anything about the gravest breach of security of the Bush Administration to date.

For a while, Dr. Knodell halfheartedly tried to hide behind the White House's standard evasion, that there was "an ongoing criminal investigation" and it was not the practice of the Security Office to run "collateral investigations." Unfortunately, his co-panelist, Bill Leonard, head of something called the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives and Records, contradicted this easy out. There is no such practice, he authoritatively said. The primary responsibility for determining the ongoing propriety of giving security clearances to White House personnel lies with Dr. Knodell's office. As one would assume. (Mr. Leonard, indeed, appeared so genuinely outraged by what the White House had covered up that he fell all over himself to help the Committee get to the true, fetid bottom of this mess.)

So when Inspector Georges promised in 2003 to "get to [that same] bottom" of the Plame leak, how did he intend to go about it? Ah, I think I just figured it out. At the moment he made his specious pledge, as he impersonated once again a man with the faintest trace of moral probity, he had already gotten to the bottom of it. He knew who had done it, because he was in on it. Zoot alors! Eye haff zahlved zee case!