The fact that Tenet allowed Bush to make the unsubstantiated charge is no credit to the CIA director, but Bush’s attempt to blame Tenet for the whole fiasco is like the drunkard blaming his wife for his drinking because she hasn’t the fortitude to take away his bottle.

It appears this is an administration badly in need of a twelve-step program. Far from accepting responsibility for his own actions and errors, President Bush now employs Clintonian word games in an effort to defend himself against the charge that he lied to the American people. Since the revelations hit the press last week, Bush and his spokespeople have been busy claiming his statements in the State of the Union were actually true, because he cited a British intelligence report alleging the sales, rather than an American one. And in a technical sense, he’s right— just as President Clinton was technically correct when he claimed there is no sex between himself and Monica Lewinsky. It depends on what your definition of is is. It also depends on what your definition of truth is. While Bush may have been technically truthful in citing a British intelligence report for his allegations, his decision to do so is clear evidence that he knew he couldn’t cite U.S. intelligence, because his own intelligence service knew the British report was highly suspect.

No matter how you slice it, Bush knowingly made a reckless allegation, and the credibility of his administration, the presidency, and this nation, has suffered as a result. If Bush were a bigger man, rather than someone who’s used his name and connections to evade responsibility all his life, he’d stand up and accept the blame here. That’s what a real leader does when his or her team screws up. They don’t hide behind underlings.