Was it serious?

I'm curious what the take will be from Republicans as Plame-Gate moves forward. So far we've seen an "it was no big deal" position.

There was a hearing this morning:

TODAY: Hearing on Intelligence Breach Consequences
Friday, June 22, 2005 -- Rep. Waxman and Senator Byron Dorgan will co-chair a Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing at which former intelligence officials will testify about the damage to national security caused by the White House outing of covert CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson.

John @ americablog has this initial comment after having watched the hearing.

Perhaps the most interesting comment has been from a former CIA officer who was in, I believe, the same class as Valerie Plame. He didn't even initially realize Novak's article and the ensuing scandal was about Valerie Plame because he only knew her as Valerie P. As a rule, they were told, even inside the CIA, to NEVER use their last names, only use the first initial. So even HE never knew her name and he WORKED with her INSIDE THE CIA.

Now tell me that leaking the name of a CIA agent is, as President Bush obviously believes, no big deal unless it's brings a criminal indictment.

I'm trying to get a sense of the gravity of the situation. Again, go back to the bar set during the Clinton administration. Clinton was impeached for lying in a deposition in the Paula Jones litigation about getting a blow job from a White House intern.

How does that square with what we're seeing from at least one White House senior advisor? We know that Karl Rove leaked the identity. There is a possibility that Scooter Libby did as well. We know that Ari Fleischer told the grand jury he never saw the State Department memo, yet other administration official(s) told journalists that he did in fact have the memo and was seen reading it on an Air Force One flight to Africa.

We have the RNC on record as saying this is no big deal, and blaming Democrats. Is there a standard here that if a Democrat screws up about something totally unrelated to governing, they suffer extreme penalties, yet if the Republican violate Federal law designed to protection national security, it's no big deal?

Just curious..