Now Can We...?

If, per former Bush Administration Press Secretary Scott McClellan, El Presidente himself authorized the Valerie Plame covert CIA identity leak, can we impeach him now? Per Emptywheel:

Thus far, though, we only had Dick Cheney's word that he had actually asked Bush to declassify this information. We didn't have Bush's confirmation that he had actually declassified the information. In fact, we've had Dick Cheney's claims that he--Dick--had insta-declassified via his super secret pixie dust declassification powers.

But now we've got George Bush, confirming that he, the President of the United States, authorized the leaks of "this information."

Now, though Scottie refers, obliquely, to "this information," he explicitly refers only to the NIE. But as I've described over and over again, it's not just the NIE Bush authorized Dick to order Libby to leak.

Here's McClellan seeming to let this slip on the Today Show. According to him, Bush was fine with having done it, treating Scottie as inner circle, having come from Texas, his mother a GOP stalwart -- until the last election.

What appears to have happened here is that McClellan was young, idealistic, and more the older type Republican, probably more like Bush Senior. He's put in the middle of this thing after Ari Fleischer broke in the job through the selling of the Iraq War and then wisely jumped ship. Fleischer had seen what was being passed around Air Force One the night or so before Cheney set Libby loose to smear Wilson, having run it by the President with a bunch of other slightly less impeachable deception plans, and (a very smart, if misaligned guy) must have gone home to his family after with every Spidey sense in his head going off at once, panic vertigo, got to get out of there before he ends up on a executive prison farm, got to protect myself and my family.

Then, I imagine, as Scottie got these weird moments of revelation, mainly that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby had hung him out to dry, he must have leaked it back to his mom, the old hand politico. Just imagine what that did to her Party alignment -- I could tell you what it would do to mine if one of my boys was played the patsy that way, by people so powerful.

So mom's approval must have given him the courage to put out the book. To let loose the truth, no matter the rusted bullybats of the disparate remaining pieces of what was once Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld's character assassination machine. Just as Paul O'Neill. He did an hour tonight with Olbermann. He hits The Daily Show on Monday. Assuming he stays healthy.

John Dean says this may be prosecutable. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) has been pushing for impeachment hearings for awhile, now has new evidence to pursue. Rove has been subpoenaed, not looking good for weaseling out.
But even if we don't get our impeachment, our public flogging (and with Bush's escape pod ready), maybe we'll get, looking ahead to November, the most important thing of all. Per gpack:

If one thing is clear, it is that McClellan just confirmed that Obama was right from the start - the war should never have been waged. McClellan has destroyed McCain's argument that there is any reason to remain in Iraq. Even Pat Buchannan said that the core principle of the GOP has always been to avoid foreign entanglements. He added that going into Iraq, which he too opposed, is not a conservative ideal. It is the product of neo-conservatives who developed an ideology best described by McClellan as "coercive democracy." Knowing that this idea would not even float in the Republican Party, McClellan presents the story of how it was sold as a lie to the American people.

I'll take it.