Pride...

... comes before a fall:

President Bush authorized White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose highly sensitive intelligence information to the news media in an attempt to discredit a CIA adviser whose views undermined the rationale for the invasion of Iraq, according to a federal prosecutor's account of Libby's testimony to a grand jury [...]

The revelation of Bush's role in the disclosure effort set off an intense political debate yesterday over the propriety of the White House's use of intelligence information to undermine a critic. Democratic lawmakers lined up to demand that Bush explain his involvement in an affair they called unprecedented.

"If the disclosure is true, it's breathtaking. The president is revealed as the leaker-in-chief," said Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Legal scholars and analysts said yesterday that the president has the authority to selectively declassify intelligence reports But they also said it was highly unusual for senior officials at the White House to take such an action so stealthily, without notifying Cabinet officials or others in the administration, including the CIA authors of the National Intelligence Estimate.

Oh, and to add insult to injury...

Bush has been a major critic of leaks of classified information, and his aides have repeatedly said they want to "get to the bottom" of who leaked the name of Wilson's wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, to the media, which touched off Fitzgerald's investigation . But in the past 33 months the White House has never disclosed Bush's apparent involvement in the deliberate disclosure of information meant to undermine Wilson.

If I were religious, I'd drive to the nearest church and start prayin' for 2006, because I've had enough of Dubya.