All the King's Horses and All the King's Men …

More than thirty years ago a tall, slender, fair skinned government official testified on the inner doings of the Nixon White House, and, well, you know the rest. Yesterday, Valerie Wilson, looking like she had walked off a Hollywood set, testified that “My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior government officials in both the White House and the State Department,” and the White House “jeopardized and even destroyed entire networks of foreign agents, who in turn risk their own lives and those of their families to provide the United States with needed intelligence. Lives are literally at stake.” She further added, “It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover,… from purely political motives” (MARK LEIBOVICH and NEIL A. LEWIS).

The Democrats, armed now with the power to subpoena, are beginning to ferret out the machinations of the Bush White House. Will it be too little too late to re-bottle the genie? It's hard to imagine that our legistators will not want to spend as much time as possible with their new witness.