Ham-Handed and Bush-League

via Eschaton-

Other sources confirmed, however, that Bush was initially furious with Rove in 2003 when his deputy chief of staff conceded he had talked to the press about the Plame leak.

Bush has always known that Rove often talks with reporters anonymously and he generally approved of such contacts, one source said.

But the President felt Rove and other members of the White House damage-control team did a clumsy job in their campaign to discredit Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, the ex-diplomat who criticized Bush's claim that Saddam Hussen tried to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger.

A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.

"Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way," the source said.

So, now we're seeing that Bush actually doesn't have any particular moral outrage with the actions of his staff, which would explain his relative disinterest in fettering out the problem 2 years ago by firing Rove and others. But that, in fact, what he was outraged by at the time he heard of the problem 2 years ago is the way they marketed the problem.

And that, in fact, the following two years of his administration from that point, Bush has been
completely complicit in aiding the coverup- only upset when his people got caught.

That's the kind of leadership we love and need, eh?