The investigation is described on Waxman's site, with the Waxman letter on top going into most of the details. The gist seems to be that nobody in the State Department, never mind the White House, actually stood up and specifically stopped the company from signing an exploration contract.

The thesis of "Bush lied" is, of course, dependent on the idea that people like the Deputy Director of the U.S. Regional Embassy Office in Basra are major players in the administration. Waxman lists this particular person as "The State Department" in his investigation. In a similar letter exhibit, the Senior Commercial Specialist in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is described by Waxman as "The Commerce Department."

A major exhibit is this letter, which omits names but not positions. I'm not seeing a lot of Cabinet officers here. You will also note that this letter somewhat contradicts the State Department letter here, so I guess you get the choice of deciding who's more likely to be covering their asses: The State Department, or oil company executives. Maybe you can flip a coin.

Odds are excellent that whatever these representatives of the U.S. Aid and Reconstruction office in Erbil said, or failed to say, barely reached the lower levels of the State Department in Washington, much less the Executive office.

Again, the entire accusation in the news story depends on the somewhat bizarre definition of anybody who works at ANY level in the State or Commerce department now being defined as an "Administration official," a term that I believe should be somewhat narrower in definition. Obviously the dimbulbs at MSNBC snapped it right up.