perfidy

Is it possible?

Because that's incredibly illegal*.

Dan Drezner sure is pissed off about it. (see also an exhaustive list of links to updates at Drezner's site)

And all Condi can say is "we don't recall"?!?

[update] Looks like Ross has beaten me to this story. Well, la de dah and a tip of the hat for this insight " since the demise of the Independent Counsel statute, there isn't any way to get an unbiased look inside the White House. "

* I originally used the word "treason" here, but that word's bandied about all too freely these days. However, in the words of Seymour Skinner, "Prove me wrong, children! Prove me wrong!"
What, you ask?

From the Post:

At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.

The operative's identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.

The intentional disclosure of a covert operative's identity is a violation of federal law.

The officer's name was disclosed on July 14 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who said his sources were two senior administration officials.

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account touched off a political fracas over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

That.