Speaking about the CIA leak investigation facing the White House, Gov. Howard Dean (D-Vt.) said he was less concerned about White House aides, Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who may have violated the law in revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

        "This is about the fact that the president didn’t tell us the truth when we went to Iraq, and all these guys are involved in it," Dean said. "It’s a huge cover-up. That’s what they’re in trouble for. But if you look at the deed that led to the cover-up, it was an attack on the president’s dishonesty over the Iraq question. This all came to pass because Joseph Wilson." Wilson, Plames’ husband, attacked the Bush administration’s assertion that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger.

        Added Dean: “What got Rove and Libby in trouble was because they were attacking– which the Republicans always do, attacking somebody who criticized them and disagreed with them."

        Last week, Dean called on the Bush administration to waive executive privilege to release recent records of former Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

        The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee’s request came after the two top ranking senators on the Senate Judiciary committee criticized Miers for what they described as unsatisfactory answers to a questionnaire the committee distributed. "We have no ideas what this women’s record is about," Dean said on ABC News’ “This Week.”

        "She’s obviously an accomplished attorney. The question is what does she believe. We have no idea. We’ve got to see what she wrote for the president when she was his legal counsel. And my guess is if we don’t get those documents, she can’t get confirmed."

        Echoing the bi-partisan sentiment of the national political parties, Dean called the Miers nomination "the most mismanaged nomination I’ve ever seen by the White House." "This is a really botched-up process," Dean said. "I have not seen this much incompetence in the White House, but we saw this much incompetence just a few weeks ago with Hurricane Katrina. I can’t imagine what they were thinking bout doing this. And how they are managing, it is just appalling. And I think, unfortunately, the biggest victim right now is Harriet Miers. It’s unfair to her how this president has mishandled this nomination."