WASHINGTON — President Bush acknowledged publicly for the first time Thursday that someone in his administration “perhaps” leaked the name of a CIA operative, although he also said he hopes the controversy over his decision to spare prison for a former White House aide has “run its course.”

“And now we’re going to move on,” Mr. Bush said in a White House news conference.

Okay, so it is true that “Scooter” Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to federal investigators, and not of revealing the identity of a covert CIA operative. But wasn’t that last charge more or less implicit, alleging that Libby’s statements to the FBI about Valerie Plame were false in large part because he had known she was an operative, and because he had revealed that fact to reporters or knew who had? There doesn’t appear to be a whole lot of “perhaps” about it any more.

Remember, also, that Bush has not pardoned Libby, only commuted the sentence, which implies that he believes the conviction should stand. Of course, there are lots of other, more likely reasons why Bush would want to stop short of a full pardon — Libby stays out of jail this way, and he can’t be forced to testify against anyone else in the administration — but, on the public face of it at least, he’s still acknowledging that, yes, Lewis Libby is a criminal.

And even if Bush had pardoned him, or Libby had never been convicted, isn’t the possibility that someone in the White House perhaps leaked the identity of a covert operative still worth looking into? Isn’t it right that we send someone to prison for that if we can?