I Am Not A Crook...My Staff On The Other Hand...

Uh oh. President Bush has found out that there may be criminals in his administration instead of sycophants, ideologues and amoral political operatives. Well, maybe not instead of, but along with.

Bush said that if anyone in his administration committed a crime in connection with the public leak of the identity of a CIA agent while, at the same time, parking illegally and coming to the White House without a dog biscuit for Miss Beazley, that person will "no longer work in my administration. We'll send them straight back to Halliburton, or maybe make them run for Congress from Colorado."

When asked if he was backing away from an earlier statement that anyone involved in the disclosure of the C.I.A. officer's identity would be dismissed, Mr. Bush indicated that following parking regulations and "snackifying" Miss Beazley were very important indications of character. "And this administration is all about character," the president said

"We have a serious ongoing investigation here and it's not about a democrat," Bush said at an East Room news conference. "It's best people wait until the investigation is complete before we attack the prosecutor." Bush said. "Personally I have instructed my staff to refrain from openly spreading innuendo and leak it instead."

Giving an account of his role in a case that nearly landed him in jail, Matt Cooper, the reporter, disclosed that the Vice President's top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby also was a source for a story about Plame.

"I found it hard to take someone named 'Scooter' seriously though, "Cooper said. "That's why I asked Rove."

The White House had insisted for nearly two years that neither Rove nor Libby had any connection with the leak. When asked to explain the apparent discrepancy, Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "We can't comment on an ongoing investigation. Well, not unless it's an investigation of Hillary, or something cool like that."

In an effort to quell the calls to fire Rove, Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman said that Rove had first learned about Plame's identity from the news media. "See, Karl has a little problem with the weed. He doesn't remember telling Novak her name, and then when he wakes up the next day and it's in the paper he's all like 'Oh wow man, my bad.'"