No Criminals Need Apply

In the latest chapter of the Rove/Plame/Wilson/Novak/Cooper/Miller affair, President Bush has promised to fire anyone in his administration who is found to have committed a crime. That's not quite the same as his earlier pledge to fire anyone responsible for the leak that spawned the investigation, but it at least establishes a bottomline standard of conduct for White House officials. MSNBC's gloss on the new Bush pledge is "President appears to qualify standard for firing in CIA-leak case," while Fox calls it a "reiteration" of the old pledge. (We report, you decide.)

Links via Josh Marshall, who asks, pertinently:

If you committed a crime during Iran-Contra, can you work in this administration? Or does the rule -- presumably -- only apply to felonies commited in the course of employment[?]

A couple of years ago in the National Post, Matt Welch wondered just what Iran-Contra felons were doing in the Bush administration.