There's A Storm Brewing...

Here we go, again...

The New York Sun is reporting President Bush authorized the release of information from the much publicized 'National Intelligence Estimate' on Iraq, to the New York Times in 2003. The special prosecutor investigating the leak, Patrick Fitzgerald, has not stated or implied Mr. Bush violated any law or rule. The sticky part is Mr. Bush's apparent involvement in releasing information connected to Valerie Plame.

In 2003, Valerie Plame was mentioned to Robert Novak by 'Scooter' Lewis Libby, Mr. Cheney's chief of staff. Mr. Novak published Ms. Plame's name in his column in the Chicago Sun-Times. Ms. Plame was an undercover CIA operative at the time, though she was listed in "Who's Who in America" for several years (1999-2005). The row with Mr. Bush's administration began with an Op-Ed piece by Joe Wilson, a former US ambassador and Ms. Plame's husband, who was sent to Africa to investigate claims of yellowcake* transfers. His piece lambasted Bush administration assertions and some observers have suggested the leak was in response.

The administration can't stop tripping over its own feet; no controls on spending, no social security reform, no tort reform, Hurricane Katrina's bureaucratic bungling, the failed Dubai ports deal, immigration dissension in the GOP... just off the top of my head.

* yellowcake is an impure mixture of uranium oxides obtained during the processing of uranium ore and is a precursor for weaponized uranium.