Incredibly, the story of the Supreme Court Justice who was a swing vote on many social issues retiring was trumped this week by an even bigger story from Washington. While Sandra Day O’Connor’s resignation should be the most important national news story in a time that seems punctuated by a culture war being waged between the right and the left, it was Karl Rove and George Bush’s inexcusable behavior and the questionable decisions of high profile reporters that have taken the headlines, and for good reason. As those who are following the saga are aware by now, Karl Rove has been exposed as the source in articles by reporters Robert Novak and Matthew Cooper that identified the wife of a political opponent of the administration as a cover C.I.A operative. To do this is a crime and after repeatedly stating that Rove was not the source and that anyone in the administration involved in the leak would be fired, the President has changed his tune recently and stated that anyone who “committed a crime” would be fired after it was revealed that Rove was indeed the journalist’s source. As the facts have come, Mr. Rove identified Valerie Plame Wilson as an operative by referring to her as the wife of Joseph Wilson, thus potentially allowing Bush to interpret the findings as Rove having not directly identified Mrs. Wilson; thus invoking the Bill Clinton “that depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is,” clause. So the Left has finally caught their public enemy number one committing borderline treasonous acts and may be undone by its own slick interpretation of the law. How Ironic. Apparently the leg work required by said journalists to look up the identity of Mr. Wilson’s wife was enough to make it alright for Mr. Rove to out her. I mean, it must have taken really strenuous research for them to find a woman living in Washington, D.C. with her husband and children while her husband was publicly making fools of the White House for its false claims that Saddam Hussein had tried to acquire the materials for nuclear weapons in the run-up to the invasion. In his responses, Mr. Bush has essentially declared open season on the journalistic profession. Cooper and Judith Miller were threatened with jail if they did not reveal who their source for the story was to a grand jury investigating the potential crimes. If journalists are not allowed to have confidential sources then we have taken away a major weapon in the public’s ability to combat corruption in government. If “Deep Throat” had been too afraid of retribution to reveal that Watergate break in, and Nixon had not been forced to resign the presidency, who knows what todays Presidents could be getting away with (one shudders to think that might be if they can get away with illegaly revealing the identity of a C.I.A operative for political gain and falsifying information on environmental reports to downplay the significance of global warming so as to promote a continued reliance on fossil fuels). It also bears noting that Mr. Cooper displayed questionable ethics in testifying in order to avoid a jail sentence while Mrs. Miller accepted her fate. Although Mr. Rove’s behavior was despicable, Mr. Cooper may have irrepareably harmed the freedom of the press in this country that has helped us to maintain such a strong democracy. It simply compounds the damage for Mr. Bush to refuse to punish Mr. Rove. Had this been a case of a political opponent revealing an operatives name because he disagreed with the administation’s tactics in undercover missions, they most surely would be aggressively prosecuted by the administration. Mr. Rove should not warrant such favoritism. This has been the most egregious breach of the public’s trust and an assault on the democratic principles of our country of the Bush Adminstration. For a democracy to function justly, no man can be above the law. Not the President, not Karl Rove, no one. Please Mr. Bush, do the right thing and fire Karl Rove.