The President is not supposed to have direct supervisory power over the DOJ or the IRS.   The idea is to prevent a President from being able to give direct CEO style ordrs to these agencies.

The reason for this goes back to Nixon using the IRS to punish enemies, and the FBI to act as his private bagman.

Thus, the institutional distance.....

Last May, as a story was unfolding about the disruption of a Yemen-based plot to bomb an aircraft bound for the U.S., Brennan held a private teleconference with national security and terrorism commentators for the major television networks, Reuters reported. On the call, Brennan said the plot didn't pose a direct threat because the U.S. had "inside control" of it, according to the wire service.

Within hours, ABC reported that U.S. officials "had somebody on the inside who wasn't going to let it happen." By the following day, press accounts said the U.S. had a mole inside Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Reuters story suggested Brennan helped set in motion news reports that caused the operation to be shut down prematurely, but the White House called that notion "ridiculous."

Because Plame was not, despite all the claims, a covert agent. At the time of Armitage's conversation with Novak she was not covered under the law:

Let's look at the law:

Actually, Jim - rather than look at a layperson's uninformed opinion of the law, let's look at Libby's sentencing memorandum:

First, it was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the relevant statute (Title 50, United States Code, Section 421) as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press.

Furthermore, the unclassified summary of Plame's CIA employment confirmed her status.

Plame was `covert' agent at time of name leak:

On 1 January 2002, Valerie Wilson was working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations (DO). She was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) at CIA Headquarters, where she served as the Chief of a CPD component with responsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq.

While assigned to CPD, Ms. Wilson engaged in temporary duty (TDY) travel overseas on official business. She traveled at least seven times to more than ten countries.

BTW - Armitage was not the only leak, Jim.  In fact, there were several people in the administration leaking her name to the press, including Armitage, Libby and Rove.

They already work with the government when requested too.   The filter of what gets in and out is the responsibility of the government not the press.

This speaks to the larger narrative of government and executive branch competency.   Frankly if Obama did a better job running the executive branch none of these controversies would be at the level they are.

And you know this two days after it was uncovered, before any type of meaningful investigation.  That froth over getting Obama is effecting your rationality.