Level of outrage rising rapidly

On Monday, President Bush sounded tough on the Plame Game:

President Bush said Monday that the unauthorized disclosure of an undercover CIA officer’s identity was a “very serious matter” and “a criminal action” as the White House announced that 500 of its 2,000 employees had responded to a Justice Department demand for documents as part of an investigation into the source of the leak. The announcements reflected a tougher public approach by the White House to the leak, which has prompted criticism from Democrats for not treating the disclosure of the classified information more forcefully. “This is a very serious matter, and our administration takes it seriously,” Bush said at a news conference with President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya. Bush urged the person who disclosed the information to come forward. “I’d like to know who leaked [the name], and if anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find the leaker,” he said.

On Tuesday, Bush took both feet and shoved them straight into his mouth:

I mean this town is a — is a town full of people who like to leak information. And I don’t know if we’re going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there’s a lot of senior officials. I don’t have any idea. I’d like to. I want to know the truth. That’s why I’ve instructed this staff of mine to cooperate fully with the investigators — full disclosure, everything we know the investigators will find out. I have no idea whether we’ll find out who the leaker is — partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers. But we’ll find out.

Link via Josh Marshall. The most generous thing I can say about this statement is that it’s factually correct. All Bush is saying is what Jack Shafer said last week about the likelihood of finding leakers. The thing is, Shafer’s just a reporter — Bush is the boss of whoever leaked the story. Exactly what kind of message does Bush send to that person in saying this to the press? Basically, that you’ll never get caught. What does this message say to the FBI investigators? Chill out, we don’t expect you to find anything. Developing… and not in a way that I like. UPDATE: In a lot of the comments on my Plame Game posts, there’s a suggestion that Bush could find out who the leaker was with a thorough grilling of his senior staff. Mark Kleiman (who’s moved off blogspot, I see) makes a similar suggestion). Eugene Volokh provides a straightforward reason why this is not likely to be the case. Note that Eugene’s post assumes that the leaker did violate the law. If Tom Maguire’s “colossal but unintentional blunder” theory were true, Volokh’s logic is slightly weakened (the leaker may be convinced that even if he did not violate the law, he’d get railroaded given the press attention this has received). Note that this does not excuse Bush’s statements from yesterday, however. The leaker’s incentive structure doesn’t matter — Bush should be making clear what his preferences are on this issue. And yesterday’s statement indicates that he’s not all that worked up about it. Shame on him.