Charles Babington, The Washington Post:

“In bitingly partisan exchanges yesterday, lawmakers plunged into the dispute over Karl Rove’s hand in leaking a covert CIA operative’s identity.”

Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) proposed an amendment aimed at Rove “to deny access to classified information to any federal employee who discloses a covert CIA agent’s identity.”

Then Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) retaliated by offering an amendment designed to strip the security clearances of the chamber’s top two Democrats, Reid and Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.).

Reid’s amendment fell by a party-line vote. Twenty Republicans joined all present Democrats in voting against Frist’s.

Yeah, and “several Republicans did not vote nay until it was clear the measure would fail.”

Meanwhile, they were supposed to working on funding issues for homeland security.

The outing of Plame not only punished Wilson for telling the truth, but put others in danger and messed up a fairly important project vital to our national security. Oh, anyone else curious about the Plame, Aramco, dirty bomb, Brewster Jennings, Bush/terrorism money trail constellation – or is it just me…

How do these people have the time to become so completely corrupt?