Why then has the president failed to apologize to them on behalf of himself, his staff and the government of the United States?

Are you just pretending you don't know? Bush and Cheney cooked up a load of half-baked reasons for invading Iraq mainly because they felt it would be politically popular, and because Saddam Hussein was a global bogeyman and a public relations disaster, probably deservedly so. Iraq also had lots of oil, which you may have notice we use quite a bit here to run our SUVs.

The "Iraq will give terrorists nukes if we don't get in there" line was one of these strategies.

Joe Wilson, no doubt the instigation of his wife, publicly contradicted the party line, thus making the President and Vice President extremely angry. They therefore ordered their henchmen to blame Plame and do the dirty on the Wilsons in whatever way they could.

Was that so difficult?

It is not like his ratings are going to go any lower.

Or that Congress will do anything.

What would be the up side?

The American people? How quaint....

Conason Said: “Why then has the president failed to apologize to them on behalf of himself, his staff and the government of the United States?”

Why? Because he doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. In fact I’d be willing to bet that he even thinks that he’s done something noble! Bush’s evangelical conviction combined with his lack of geopolitical savvy act like a big magnet that throws his moral compass completely off kilter.

Presidents lie and engage in shady activities all the time- but they don’t generally fool themselves into thinking that they didn’t do something naughty. However, in this case I think we have to face the fact that perhaps, for the first time in history, we have a President whose moral compass is so skewed that he doesn’t know right from wrong.

Mr. Conason,

You assume that this president is capable of remorse or shame. What led you to that conclusion? The greatest predictor of future actions is past behavior. Could it be that Bush is ethically challenged?

I think you already know.

I know you've been covering Bush long enough to know that he is a vile criminal with no shame, and that your questions are rhetorical. But you are right, the press corps should be hammering Bush with these questions, if for no other reason than to get it on the public record.

The most egregious aspect of the Wilson/Plame affair was how casually the Bush (Cheney?) regime burned a valuable covert intelligence asset pursuing perhaps the most crucial national-security concern of all; nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

Congressional Republicans have succeeded so far in hiding the extent of the damage to US intelligence from this intentional act of petty political retribution. When will the Democrats make this damage assessment public? It's long overdue.

This is a much graver issue than just the malicious termination of Valerie Plame's career.

Thank you, Joe Conason. Everything you said is true. Bush does know that he did wrong in being an accomplice to the outing of Valerie Plame. He knows that Joe Wilson did the United States a positive service in discrediting the false story that uranium ore was moving from Niger to Iraq.

But Joe, don't you recall the "mushroom cloud" speeches of Cheney, Bush, Powell, and Rice in the fall of 2002? These were made in conjunction with the monthly Cheney interviews that stated that Saddam was seeking yellow cake uranium ore from Africa (Niger was the country we later found out). Yes, these were all lies. But none of the four has apologized. No, not the President, not the Vice, not the then Secretary of State, and not the then National Security Advisor has ever said, "I am sorry for those remarks."

These are proud people. And as we know, 'Pride goeth before a fall'.

No, I'm not joking - and please don't call me Shirley.

I won't comment while legal proceedings are underway
I won't comment while legal proceedings are underway
I won't comment while legal proceedings are underway
I won't comment while legal proceedings are underway
I won't comment while legal proceedings are underway
I won't comment while legal proceedings are underway
I won't comment while legal proceedings are underway
I won't comment while legal proceedings are underway
Legal proceedings are over, it's time to move on.

I have no access to cable, so I listen to the major 3 and Fox for news on my TV in the am. If I hear one more representative tell me that the Libby question is not playing anywhere outside the "beltway", I'm just going to bezerk. I swear to god i am....

There’s a great line in The Shooter, toward the end when the AG says to Danny Glover, ‘Your moral compass is so far off, I doubt you can find your way back to the car park,’ or in bushes case the oval office, or the door out of the room, this guy is just ….. fill in the blanks, we’re never going to bring back the more than 3600 American troops, or the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi’s or relocate the more than 2 million refugees this shameless president has created, but rest assured he will not get into heaven if there is one, no matter how Christian he believes himself to be, and he will go down as the worst president ever.

Born again Christians often come back as themselves

We misunderstoodimated the President: when he said "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action," it's now clear he meant "if someone leaked classified information or lied to cover up the leak, we'll take the appropriate action -- which is to pardon everyone involved."

We were too clueless to think that "appropriate action" meant anything but "fire, prosecute, and punish." Silly us.

Even with the Fitzgerald's prosecution and conviction of Libby; the right-wing-spin-machine has used their media outlets to obfuscate the base truth of the Plame-Wilson scandal. This person's identity and CIA operative status were disclosed - a federal felony maliciously done for political motivation. This crime occurred from WITHIN our country AGAINST our country. There is no precedent committed against one of our intelligence services and no matter what degree of twisted, flawed rhetoric is spun to marginalize the White House as the source of this crime will hide that fact as long as people keep their eye on the ball. Discount the smoke and mirrors and blah-blah-blah semantics. We have never, and probably will never, know the extent to which her intelligence work on WMD in the Middle East was compromised or the fate of those working under her direction once their brass-plate company was ID'd as a USA CIA operation.

Down the road; where will these people find safe havens when they are not protected by their current positions? The calm in the eye of this storm will remain as long as they enjoy that perceived protection.

How could they then (once out of office) assume the identity of a mild-mannered, USA citizen just going about their business when, in truth, they are to be viewed as rogues and criminals who fucked with my government to the point of Constitutional crisis? Whether held accountable before they leave office is probably already decreed, but the citizens of this country who have two brain cells to rub together know the truth. Truth and the facts do not diminish with the change in administrations.

Efforts will continue to tar, feather and run these bastards out of town on a rail...no matter where they chose to go. No matter where they think they can assume the mild-mannered role, they will eventually be held to account.

Justice, like water seeking it's own level, is ultimately inevitable.