By Arun Kumar. Americas, 12:38 PM IST

House appropriations committee chairman David Obey has a problem. No one obeys him. Faced with leaks about the Democrats' controversial Iraq war funding strategy, he gave party caucus members some false information to see 'who the hell was leaking'.

Asked who the suspects were, an Obey spokesman said she was obeying Obey 'not to leak that information.' A committee member James Moran did not believe that he is a suspect but said, 'I may leak, but I don't leak inaccurate information.'

But before Obey could catch the leaker, he was caught on a YouTube video yelling at a woman Iraq war protester: 'You can't end the war if you are going against the supplemental (budget). It's time these idiot liberal understood that.'

As another protester joined, Obey continued, 'That bill ends the war! If that isn't good enough for you, you are smoking something illegal. You have got your facts screwed up...'

The inevitable apology followed, but now Obey has a bigger hole to fix.

By Arun Kumar (Staff Writer, © IANS)