Will Bush Fire Cheney, Or Quit?

George W. Bush thinks that "revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemies, and endangers our country."

If revealing classified information is illegal, then it's a crime, right?

And George W. Bush promised that "If somebody committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration," right?

Now it comes out that "Scooter" Libby has testified that his "superiors" authorized him to reveal classified information in an attempt to discredit Joseph Wilson's account of his trip to Africa and thus to defend the idea that the Administration had a basis for claiming that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy uranium in Niger.

Libby's boss was Dick Cheney; Libby was Cheney's chief of staff. His only other "superior" would have been ... George W. Bush.

So either Cheney or Bush (or both) ordered the release of classified information, which according to Bush is a crime. And anyone who commits a crime has to leave the administration.

So which is it? Is Bush going to ask for Cheney's resignation, or offer his own?

Of course, the whole pretense the Administration opposes "revealing classified information" never passed the giggle test. Bush's opposition is, of course, to revealing information that discredits his policies. That's why it's a blessing not to have an Official Secrets Act: this way, we have some hope that official malfeasance and misfeasance will come out. As Henry Kissinger said a long time ago, "I never leak. I de-classify."