Administration sources said they believe that the officials who discussed Plame were not trying to expose her, but were using the information as a tool to try to persuade reporters to ignore Wilson. The officials wanted to convince the reporters that he had benefited from nepotism in being chosen for the mission.

In an abrupt turnaround, the Bush Administration has taken credit for the Plame leak and now claims that it was "the first step in the brutal war against nepotism." The leakers were instantly identified by the White House as Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, and Elliot Abrams.

President Bush is to address the nation tonight to explain that "we will take no prisoners, turn a blind eye toward no one, leave no family member behind, in our fight to protect America from this terrible scourge." President Bush, who was given a Major League baseball team, two oil companies, a governorship and a presidency by virtue of his relation to the other President Bush, will say that "destroying the cover of an undercover CIA agent was a small price to pay" if it means the elimination of nepotism "which threatens the moral purity of our entire nation."

The White House has given few clues as to what precisely President Bush's concerns were, aside from Scott McClellan's few leaks that "nepotism is evil," and "doing that with a family member is beyond icky."

A senior administration official leaked, "People should be free to make their own choices without someone suborning their will through the use of arcane voodoo."

Todd Unction of the Manson Family Institute opined, "They may be talking about hypnotism, although, for a while, I thought they were talking about incest."

He added, "But most of the decisions made within this White House are the product of inbreeding, so I think we can rule that out."