A leaky president

When they have the power, they will wield it without fear -- as long as they can.

With the former president, the cause was women.

Remember what Clinton told Dan Rather during a ''60 Minutes" interview to promote his memoir, ''My Life"? Clinton explained that he cheated with Monica Lewinsky, ''for the worst possible reason -- just because I could." With the current president, the cause was Iraq.

According to testimony provided by I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby Jr. -- former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney -- President Bush, through Cheney, authorized Libby to disclose key parts of what was until then a classified prewar intelligence estimate on Iraq, to bolster the case for war.

A president has broad discretion to declassify information. Essentially, this president allegedly authorized a leak -- because he could.

There is no indication at this time that Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of Joseph Wilson, a Bush critic. Bush said in June 2004 that he would fire anyone in his administration shown to have leaked that information; later, Bush added the qualifier that it would have to be shown that a crime was committed.

But Bush's qualifier also brings to mind Clinton's famous denial regarding Lewinsky: ''I did not have sexual relations with that woman." The denial was all about Clinton's definition of ''sexual relations" -- just like Bush's statement about firing a leaker is all about whether a crime was committed.

But Bush should take no comfort in that dodge, not if he considers what happened after Clinton tried to parse the definition of ''sexual relations," publicly and during grand jury testimony.

Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr did not let Clinton get away with it. Seven months after Clinton told a national audience he did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky, he was back on national television, this time admitting, ''I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible." Starr later used aspects of the Lewinsky matter to make the case that there was ''substantial and credible information" that Clinton committed acts that might be grounds for impeachment.

What Bush is parsing is far more serious than tawdry sexual relations in the Oval Office. As leftover bumper stickers from 2004 remind us, ''No one died when Clinton lied."

For Bush, it is becoming clearer that questions about Iraq, manipulation of prewar intelligence and the Bush administration's way of dealing with critics are gaining steam in a dangerous forum -- the case against Scooter Libby.

Libby is charged with lying and obstructing a federal investigation into whether the Bush administration revealed Plame's identity to get back at Wilson. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, seems to be building a case to show an organized effort by the Bush administration to attack Wilson by spinning the case for war. In defending himself, Libby is apparently willing to throw his superiors -- Cheney and Bush -- to the political wolves.

And the political wolves are circling. In the House, some Democrats have signed on to a resolution from Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, that demands a special committee to investigate the Bush administration's ''manipulation of prewar intelligence," among other things, and advise whether there are ''grounds for possible impeachment." In the Senate, Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, is calling for censure of Bush on another matter -- Bush's wiretapping of US citizens without a warrant.

Someday, when Bush sits down to write his memoirs, he can draw inspiration from Clinton and this passage in ''My Life":

''I had had a lot of stones cast at me, and through my own self-inflicted wounds I had been exposed to the whole world. In some ways it was liberating. I had nothing more to hide. And as I tried to understand why I had made my own mistakes, I also attempted to figure out why my adversaries were so consumed with hatred and so willing to say and do things inconsistent with their professed moral convictions . . ."

In the meantime, Bill Clinton had a thing about Monica Lewinsky. George W. Bush had a thing about Saddam Hussein. The rest is history.

Joan Vennochi's e-mail address is vennochi@globe.com.