I would imagine that when the President gets elected, his staff goes to some kind of orientation where they undergo training in how to work for the government and what rules and regulations to follow. Probably the first rule is that you can't engage in any political campaigning from the office or use government resources for personal use. You also can't download pornography from the government's computers or reveal government secrets without permission. Another rule that must be passed along to new government employees is that you can't reveal the identity of any CIA employees.

The CIA remains a super-secret organization. You are not allowed to know who works for the CIA or what they are doing. Sort of like the mafia. That analogy is not totally off-base. Both organizations are known for unsavory and illegal acts, as any good book on these entities will attest. In the 1970's, a leftist magazine, Counterspy, made the identity of CIA operatives our business. Counterspy quite understandably objected to much of what the CIA was doing, as our intelligence operatives were doing more than just gathering information about foreign countries and spying on international threats and political organizations. The CIA was also overthrowing and destablizing governments that did not cater to the political and economic needs of American politicians. These covert operations killed thousands of people and made the U.S. government an international pariah.

Congress eventually passed a law making it illegal to "out" a CIA operative. George H.W. Bush, a former CIA chief who became President in 1989, declared those who out CIA operatives to be traitors. His son runs an administration that outed a covert CIA official in order to retaliate against her husband, who declared shenanigans on Bush Jr.'s war in Iraq. This is what we have come to: a bootlicker like Bush Sr. who presided over the Reagan adminstration's murderous foreign policy comes off like the voice of reason in comparison to his offspring who wanted war so bad that he would throw anybody under the bus just so that he could parade in front of the soldiers with a "Mission Accomplished" banner behind him.

One of the many scandals eroding the credibility of the Bush administration is the outing of Valarie Plame, whose husband's dissent sparked retaliatory impulse in the Bush White House. Her career was destroyed, and her testimony before Congress today shows that she was victimized by the wild-west mentality of the rogues who've hijacked the Executive Branch of American government. There was a day when Republicans embraced the CIA as the tool of American values around the world. Today the Republican Party's contemptuous misuse of the CIA's covert identity rules shows beyond any doubt that some people will do anything to advance a political goal.

Bush's public standing is breaking apart like the glaciers at the North Pole. This is a good thing. An emasculated presidency through January 2009 can only help the country. If you let the first graders run the school, then the school turns into a playground. If you let reactionary zealots take over the presidency, then the presidency becomes an ethical hell-hole where anything goes, even by the very standards of the American presidency. I doubt the American people deserve any forgiveness in reelecting Bush. I'm not sure they deserve a medal for waking up. It wasn't that hard to do.