The coverup

The importance of the recent revelation that the Bush administration is focused, in its handling of the Valerie Plame leak, not on the source of that leak, but on the official who confirmed it, seems to have escaped notice so far. So let's explore it a little further.

The recent Newsweek piece by Michael Isikoff -- a fairly clear iteration of White House talking points -- made this shift in the direction of the investigation within the White House explicit. It even laid out the thinking of the Bush team:

[I]t suggested for the first time that there was a big-league dissenter within the upper ranks of the Bush administration, someone who was genuinely appalled at crude White House attempts to discredit a critic. (Novak’s small point was that Wilson was dispatched by the CIA to check out claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy uranium from Niger only because his agency wife recommended him.) It also was the strongest evidence that the disclosure of Plame’s identify was done with malicious intent and not, as Novak has since insisted, a passing reference in the course of a lengthy conversation about a wide range of matters.

Not only do the anonymous official's remarks rebut the White House's emerging claim that there was no "criminal intent" in the release of Plame's identity, but they run smack into the chief operating principle of the Bush team: Loyalty above all.

Whoever talked to the Post was disloyal to the team. And that means they will be ferreted out and punished.

This lays bare the same lack of principle, the same skewed priorities, that were operative in the outing of Plame's CIA identity -- wherein fealty to Bush and the triumph of his politics is of greater significance than anything, even national security. Joseph Wilson and his wife's value as human beings, and as civil servants, was rendered moot under this calculus. They became expendable from a political standpoint.

The same fate almost certainly awaits whoever the "senior administration official" might be. He will be made an example of, as Bush's proof of his desire to root out leakers. The sources of the leak to Novak, however, will be found innocent of "criminal intent."

Most of all, this change in focus means that the Bush team is in full coverup mode -- seeking to punish the dissenters who stray from the team's official story about the leak -- even if, as Atrios points out, that official story is already full of holes.

Well, the Beltway press has not been noted for its ability to take in the big picture. At some point, though -- perhaps when Team Bush files for executive privilege in the case -- they'll understand just how far along this coverup has proceeded already.