Loose Lips

Check out this AmericaBlog post. Short version:

Last year, the Bush administration, in an attempt to steal the spotlight from the Democratic National Convention, spun the terror alert color wheel and pronounced the threat "heightened." When pressed on the matter, Team Bush clumsily sputtered and frothed, providing the press enough information to piece together a story involving a certain individual in Pakistani custody named Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan. Why is that important? Well, Khan, despite his arrest, was still in contact with other Al Qaeda operatives. You see, Pakistani authorities had managed to turn Khan. He was a mole.

Among other things, Khan had information about plans for a London subway bombing. Had THAT operation continued, there's a good chance British authorities could have foiled the plot BEFORE the fact. However, with Team Bush determined to prove that Code Orange Julius or whatever it was was justified, a lengthy investigation was blown. Police in England managed to make some arrests on minor charges--but other Al Qaeda terrorists managed to fly the coop, AND the operation itself was placed in the hands of another cell, which carried out the ugly action last week.

But hey, leaking information vital to global security is just a day's work for the Bushistas. And there was an election to be won (the only thing that matters to them).