Leaking With A Vengeance

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Recalling the torture inflicted on Bush's predecessor by a squad of special prosecutors, congressional Democrats demanded that a special counsel be appointed in this case. By Wednesday some had christened the scandal Intimigate and were trying to link it to every political issue in sight. New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, who had been among the first to call for an investigation back in July, announced that he would offer a nonbinding amendment to be attached to the Administration's bill for the $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, calling for the naming of a special prosecutor. It is a vote Republican Senators dread. "You can't ignore the political side of this," says a Senate Democratic aide. "Yeah, we're going to play it up. And so long as the Republicans continue to assert that this is going to be handled by Ashcroft, I don't think the scandal will end." In reality, even if a special prosecutor is appointed, the scandal will continue to fester.

Democrats know they could overplay their hand if they appear too partisan, a line they came close to crossing last week. House Democratic leaders canceled a meeting with Wilson this week because they realized its politics could potentially backfire on them. "The issue for Democrats is not to make this look like it's partisan," insists a senior Senate Democratic staffer, "because it really is serious."

Indeed, the tale was setting some new records for political irony. On the one hand, there was New York's Senator Hillary Clinton, who steadfastly fought the appointment of an independent prosecutor to investigate Whitewater when she was First Lady, calling on Ashcroft to step aside. And on the other, there was President Bush at the University of Chicago, asking reporters who covered him to turn in anyone on his staff who had given up Plame. There was no danger of that, because any reporter who might have learned Plame's name in a leak is duty bound to shut up about it, even to federal investigators, if the situation comes to that. Such obligations did not stop hundreds of reporters and politicians who thought they knew the identity of the leakers from buzzing about it, exchanging winks and nods about the supposed culprits. The ultimate irony is that the Administration may now be depending on journalists' rectitude. In the prelude to and particularly in the aftermath of the war, Bush's aides at times questioned the patriotism of the press; that some of those officials may now be depending on the silence of the media in the face of a national-security investigation made some Bush allies uncomfortable. Though she says she believes the White House denials, longtime Bush adviser Karen Hughes tells TIME, "I don't believe it's right to hide behind journalists."