I watched President Bush's statement last night warning Congress about its investigation into the U.S. Attorney purge story, and I thought it was a remarkably bad performance. President Bush seemed weak, petty, and defensive. His rhetoric struck me as absurd: Given reason to think that at least some of the U.S. Attorneys were fired for not being excessively partisan, it falls flat to object to an investigation on the ground that the investigation is excessively partisan. No wonder that the House Judiciary Committee has already responded by authorizing the Committee Chair to subpoena White House officials if they will not testify voluntarily.