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And lo, once again President Bush flip-flops from one of his most doggedly repeated moral-ethical-legal positions, the one that Scott McClellan probably still recites verbatim in his sleep if you so much as whisper the words Plame, Fitzgerald or Libby anywhere within a six feet radius of his ear. I am referring, of course, to the double-barrelled catch-all dodge of “We cannot comment on ongoing investigations” and “We’re not going to prejudge the investigation”.

The latter, you will remember, was trotted out every time Bush or McClellan was asked a hypothetical question like “If a senior White House official is found to be guilty of the leak, …” or “If Karl Rove is indicted, …”. No one was ever able to get McClellan to concede that answering a hypothetical like that did not imply a prediction that the hypothetical statement would actually prove to be true. They stuck to the stand that to answer the question was prejudging the issue, and making wholly unbecoming assumptions about how things were going to turn out.

As for the former, it was always “we cannot”, not “we won’t”.

These deeply ingrained principles have, of course, been frequently honored in the breach. (For example, when President Bush was asked if he thought Tom DeLay was innocent of the money laundering and conspiracy charges he was indicted for, and he went “Yes, I do”.)

Yesterday, President Bush apparently decided it was time for another “I can do whatever I want” moment:

President Bush, in his first public comment on the Haditha incident, said yesterday that if an investigation finds evidence of wrongdoing, those involved will be punished. “I am troubled by the initial news stories,” Bush said after a meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame. “I am mindful there is a thorough investigation going on. If in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment.“

Fired off both barrels at once, huh? Commented on an ongoing investigation, and prejudged the investigation.

When challenged by reporters after Bush’s “I do” comment about DeLay, here’s how McClellan responded:

“The president was asked a question and he responded to that question in the interview yesterday, and made very clear what his views were,” McClellan said. “We don’t typically tend to get into discussing legal matters of that nature, but in this instance, the president chose to respond to it. Our policy regarding the Fitzgerald investigation and ongoing legal proceeding is well-known and it remains unchanged.”

It remains to be seen how Tony Snow will acquit himself when the question comes up at his next press briefing, and he has to walk in McClellan’s shoes. But coincidentally, the question came up at his 1 pm briefing yesterday, before the President made his remarks:

MR. SNOW: …I mentioned this morning that there are two tracks. Number one is what happened with the reporting of the incident, and what happened. And the Marines are taking both of those very seriously and they’re proceeding very aggressively. So I think rather than trying to prejudge it — the second thing, and this is equally important, is that when you have an ongoing criminal proceeding, to try to characterize it on my part or anybody within the chain of command within the Department of Defense could very well prejudice and injure any attempts to engage in a prosecution should it be necessary. So you’ve got to be very careful about how you do this.

Q Tony, the President has been very open about what he thinks about Abu Ghraib and how that affected the world’s view of Iraq. So what was his personal reaction to the reports (of Haditha) initially?

MR. SNOW: Well, again, you take a look at the initial reports and, obviously, these are disturbing, but this is where I want to be careful, Jim, because, again, if we start characterizing a reaction to a report, it could be construed as trying to intervene in an ongoing investigation. So we have to be very careful. It’s very inviting to say, we’ve heard these things, it’s terrible — to express full outrage. But the President has an obligation to make sure that the people who are conducting a criminal investigation within the Department of Defense have an opportunity to do that in a way that is consistent with the rule of law and with the military — the Code of Military Justice.

Q Is he satisfied that that investigation started quickly enough?

MR. SNOW: Again, keep in mind, there are two parts in this investigation. I can’t even answer that question because it may prejudice something that’s ongoing, as well.

So yesterday at 1 pm, for Bush to reveal his personal reaction to the reports would be intervening in the investigation, and even commenting on whether the investigation started quickly enough would potentially prejudice the ongoing investigation.

Stay tuned for the next episode.