September 30, 2003
R. D. Kushner

There’s a leak in the White House. Let’s work with that metaphor. There are 132 rooms in the White House [1]. Of those 132 rooms, 35 of them are bathrooms [2]. Last weekend from an “undisclosed location,” a pipe burst; and ever since there has been a steady stream of water running down the front steps. For the past few days, George W. Bush has been tracking dirty water into the White House without addressing the fact that the carpet is beginning to smell like Karl Rove’s dirty laundry.

When he finally released a statement about the allegations, he sounded as if he was scolding the family dog: "Leaks of classified information are bad things [3]." Bad leak! Bad, bad, leak! His press secretary, Scott McClellan, redirected all inquires and actions to the Department of Justice, stating, “...if someone leaked classified information of this nature, the appropriate agency to look into it would be the Department of Justice. So the Department of Justice is the one that would look in matters like this [4].”

Calling the Department of Justice to investigate a domestic “leak” is the equivalent of taking an automobile in for psychotherapy when it gets low on gas: there is an outside chance that it might end up doing some good, but in the end it’s the wrong way to fix the problem, and it blatantly ignores the real issue.

Based on much more flimsy evidence than that which has surfaced around the recent information leak about Joseph C. Wilson’s wife, alert American readers will remember the president taking a much more personal interest in national security:

"The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb. The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide [5]."

This statement makes even the most conspiracy-ridden speculation about Karl Rove’s involvement in the C.I.A. security breach seem even more probable than Governor Gray Davis’ Republican orchestrated defeat in California. If the same kind of flimsy evidence were allowed in linking Dick Cheney to Haliburton’s recent open-ended contract awards in Iraq, he’d be run out off office faster than Richard Grasso was removed from the NYSE. And although the president is “certain that Karl Rove wasn’t involved,” he was equally convinced of Iraq’s imminent nuclear threat before it was debunked by Wilson’s editorial in the New York Times, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” published on July 6, 2003 [6].

“Leaks of classified information are bad things.”
– George W. Bush

“So the Department of Justice is the one that would look in matters like this.”
-Scott McClellan

When compared to his other serious statements about homeland security and his Machiavellian, “war on terror,” this impotent reprimand and the administration’s insipid shirking of responsibility are laughable.

In a country where conservative nationalists equated anti-war with anti-American, where the Patriot Act has drawn a fine line between protest and treason, and where the government has requested 87 billion dollars from jobless, homeless, healthcare-less taxpayers, to give to politically connected American businesses to rebuild Iraq, it might seem obvious that the divulgence of top secret information about the C.I.A. would be a terrible and dangerous crime. But for some reason the current administration needed three days to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation. That’s two more days than it needed to provide United States Citizens with photographs of Uday and Qusay’s dead bodies.

With all his talk about freedom and justice, it seems hard to believe that President Bush is ignoring the fact that his administration’s actions will be governed by the same rhetorical zealotry that he has used so shamelessly to push forth everything from tax cuts for the rich to rollbacks in clean air laws.

A formal inquiry into the White House’s faulty plumbing is the only proper way to proceed. The administration has hidden behind a controlled veil of secrecy in the past, and Ashcroft’s plumber will ultimately have a conflict of interests; the Attorney General needs to appoint an independent council to find the leak. American Democracy demands it, if it is ever to achieve the freedom which George W. Bush lampoons with this righteous moniker.

As the investigation continues, and the right screams about partisan politics, political ploys, leftist conspiracies, the allegation that Wilson’s wife appointed him to his diplomatic position, and speculation about the sensitivity of her C.I.A. position, it will be hard to find the truth amid the mudslinging. However, since the administration isn’t shy about asking taxpayers for 87 billion dollars to rebuild Iraq it might be prudent to spend a few dollars investigating this political "ploy." If it is a cheap ploy then it should blow over as quickly as Whitewater.