Scott McClellan flummoxed a lot of people when he announced that Scooter Libby and Eliot Abrams were not involved in disclosing Valerie Plame’s name. I say flummoxed because there was a lot of chatter, and good bit of circumstantial evidence pointing in Libby’s direction, and at least some pointing in Abrams’. But once McClellan issued flat denials on their behalf it really made people wonder.

But, as you’ll remember, I’ve been making quite a point of late of the administration’s extremely disciplined use of the phrase “leaks of classified information” when referring to anything about Plame. They never mention Plame’s name --- which is perhaps understandable. But they don’t even make any mention of exposing a CIA operative. It's always "leaks of classified information" this and "leaks of classified information" that.

That makes me wonder just how air-tight McClellan’s statement is. What he said was that “They [i.e., Libby and Abrams] were not involved in leaking classified information, nor did they condone it.”

Now presumably Plame’s identity was classified information. But why frame this denial in such a precise, lawyerly and frankly off-point fashion? Why not just say they told no one about Plame’s identity. Or even just, they did not disclose the identity of any agent from the Directorate of Operations?

Something’s up here ...