Inevitably, the right's talking points will tell us that the administration's critics are hypocrites. We wanted the Justice Department to probe the Plame leak, they'll say, but not the "snoopgate" leak. But if Bush's political allies can't see the difference between exposing official wrongdoing and exposing a CIA agent to help cover up bogus pre-war claims, there's just no hope for them.

Well, there already wasn't any hope for most of these people who spout that whatever Bush does is legal by definition. But the above argument is far too nuanced and attackable to survive the shouting heads on TV and Radio. If anyone tells you that you have to support this if you supported the investigation of outing Valerie Plame, here's how you respond:

It cannot be illegal to reveal that the government broke the law.

That's all we're talking about in the end, and attempts to obfuscate with "national security" and "all leaks are the same" are ridiculous. When Scooter Libby outed Valerie Plame, he didn't do it because she was breaking the law, he did it because her husband revealed that his bosses were lying about their casus belli. When the New York Times revealed the warrantless wiretaps, they revealed that the administration was violating clear federal statutes, something that even John Dean said was grounds for impeaching the president.

It cannot be illegal to reveal that the government broke the law. The Justice Department may have to investigate just to understand what happened, but it cannot be illegal to reveal that another party has broken the law. The law cannot allow punishing those who try to see that it is enforced.

In fact, if it is both legal and encouraged to reveal crimes when they're committed, then isn't calling for this investigation tantamount to attempted intimidation of witnesses? If it turns out this probe was politically motivated, the ones who called for it may have committed felonies themselves. And at firedoglake, Jane makes a good argument that it is political:

I mean, honestly, if they had been serious about getting to the bottom of the leak, wouldn't they have started looking into it a year ago when the WH started pressuring the NYTimes to keep the story under wraps? The closer to the leak you start the investigation, the better in terms of tracking down the leak. I'm just sayin'.

Indeed.