Editorial: Bush’s changing view

Tuesday, July 19, 2005 | 9:01 a.m.

Time reporter Matthew Cooper writes in this week's edition of the magazine that it was from White House adviser Karl Rove that he "learned for the first time" that a prominent Bush administration critic was married to a CIA operative. Cooper also discloses that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, confirmed the information.

Cooper is a key figure in a special prosecutor's investigation into who leaked information leading to the identity of Valerie Plame, the CIA operative. She is the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat who completed a CIA assignment to Niger in Western Africa in 2002. He investigated foreign intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy weapons-grade uranium from Niger, and found no confirmation. In a July 6, 2003, column for The New York Times, he blistered President Bush for using the false intelligence information as further proof that Saddam posed a threat to the United States.

Plame's name and job appeared first in a July 14, 2003, column by conservative writer Robert Novak. The gist was that Wilson's trip had been authorized by Plame on a level so low that President Bush would not have known about it. Following up, Cooper also disclosed Plame's name later that month, using Rove and Libby as confidential sources. He said neither identified Plame by name, but did reveal where she worked.

There is a federal law prohibiting the disclosure of a CIA operative, but its many requirements for conviction could leave Rove -- Bush's most influential adviser -- and Libby legally clear. This likely explains Bush's new choice of words. He told reporters Monday that, "If someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration." The past White House stance has been that "anyone involved" in the leak would be fired.

The distinction seems plain: If no "crime" is found to have been committed, there will be no firing and the spin will be to "move forward" -- leaving any ethical and character lapses behind.