Do I hear $9 million?

White House Press Briefing, Oct. 10, 2003:

Q: Scott, earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

MR. SCOTT McCLELLAN: Those individuals -- I talked -- I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.

Q: So none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

MR. McCLELLAN: They assured me that they were not involved in this.

Q: Can I follow up on that?

Q: They were not involved in what?

MR. McCLELLAN: The leaking of classified information.

Q: Did you undertake that on your own volition, or were you instructed to go to these --

MR. McCLELLAN: I spoke to those individuals myself.

During that same year:

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff "asked for $9 million in 2003 from the president of a West African nation to arrange a meeting with President Bush and directed his fees to a Maryland company now under federal scrutiny," the New York Times reports. "The African leader, President Omar Bongo of Gabon, met with President Bush in the Oval Office on May 26, 2004, 10 months after Mr. Abramoff made the offer."

However, White House and State Department officials "described Mr. Bush's meeting with President Bongo, whose government is regularly accused by the United States of human rights abuses, as routine. The officials said they knew of no involvement by Mr. Abramoff in the arrangements."

No one's involved. No one recalls. No one was in the loop. No one broke the law. No one had any idea what was going on under them or outside their door. Your government at work and for sale. Selling CIA agents out to reporters and the Oval Office to despots. And you had a problem with $100,000 contributors sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom? Seems quaint by comparison.

W and his capos have sold anything of value away. Our environment, our moral standing, our principles, our freedoms, our economic future, our education, our health care, our national security assets, our military and our sense that we are all in this together. And we get to pay the bill for W's epic recklessness with supreme executive authority. I want a refund.