I was so happy that Henry Waxman opened the hearing up with remarks from George Bush Sr. regarding leakers (video here):

"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who expose the names of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors."

I've always felt there was a strong father/son rivalry that was an element to this case that has largely gone unexplored, and that should certainly get Junior's (Pet) Goat.

Valerie Plame was luminous and helped in no small part by the fact that she is smart, sincere, professional and articulate (not to mention gorgeous).  The administration was not done any favors by the Republicans defending it on the panel, most spectaculalry by Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, who came out and admitted he'd never questioned a spy before and then proceeded to act like he was chatting her up at a bar.  Westmoreland had already given us a demonstration of his intellectual acumen on the Colbert Report, when — as co-sponsor of the Ten Commandments bill — he couldn't name them.  He was in his usual resplendent form today.

The big news of the day, however, came from Dr. James Knodell, who — as Director of the Office of Security at the The White House — admitted that there has been absolutely no investigation into the leaking of Plame's identity by employee Karl Rove.  To say the response from the committee was shock would be an understatement.

Toensing's testimony was rife with what could charitably be considered "inaccuracies."  She claimed knowledge of Plame's status she freely admitted she could not have had, having not spoken to either the CIA nor Plame on the topic, and she also claimed that Grenier had given her name as Valerie Plame (he hadn't).  Waxman seemed to be aware of this as he closed out the proceedings, thanking the administration's spokesman (and ComPost contributor) for her time, promising that her statements would be fact checked.  I'm sure Marcy will be doing much the same here tonight.

Curiosly, the juror who was dismissed from the Libby trial — a woman in a short blond bob — was at the hearings, and spent most of Toensing's testimony glaring at the back of her head.  Toensing may have spent most of her time dissembling at the request of the minority and trying to steal everyone else's time, but at least there was a nice visual metaphor about how the rest of us felt about the whole thing.

Update:  How could I forget the NIE declassification?  And the Niger forgeries?  Committee members also expressed a desire to open up the shilling done by Republicans on the SSCI committee, who openly distorted what happened with regard to the Wilsons and Joe's trip to Niger.   Let's hope they follow up on all of these things.  I certainly did not see this as the last hearing necessary to get to the bottom of this mess.

Related posts:

  1. Waxman: Blue Dogs Trying to “Eviscerate” Health Care
  2. The Least Interesting Man in the World
  3. Cheney’s Betrayal Made an IIPA Charge for Libby Possible
  4. Waxman’s Methods
  5. Fitzgerald-Cheney Interview: A Comedy of Excuses