No, they're just trying to get as much milage as they can out of it before it all disappears and nothing's left but the echo of a slur.

Ummm, So I'm betting that Rove mentioned 'Wilsons wife' or 'Valerie Plame', and the reporter looked up the fact that she was in the CIA and published it, and it was actually the reporter that outed Plame? I.e. He gave half the puzzle, and the reporter looked up the rest and did the deed.

That would explain why a reporter who knew it was Rove would not be quick to expose him, because there is little 'there' there. He was given an innocent little titbit from Rove, filled in the blanks, and jumped in headfirst.

Yeah, not much here. I've been reading comments from liberals and they're besides themselves with glee. But this totally reminds of the late 90's with Clinton. Some accusation of malfeasance would be made, conservatives would get all excited, then it just never panned out into any kind of real proof of wrongdoing. I guess the left will have to live with disappointment on this one.

Definitely Not the Plame Leaker... Probably

Love the title (and I suppose I deserve a bit of mocking. No, darn it, I DO deserve it!)

With all the MSM bashing, maybe this is an opportunity to give the NYTimes credit for putting principle over liberal bias.

NYT's Judith Miller has the opportunity to testify before the grand jury that Karl Rove outed Plame, but instead both Miller and the NYTimes opt for jail/fines rather than drive a stake through the heart of their #1 political enemy.

Now that's what I call integrity.

Well in less of course it's not true.

Late to the party again. My guess is that Rove's the leaker. That's a guess, but it seems to make sense. (Sorry, I'm gonna go long here)

There's a lot of stuff to read to get up to speed on this story, but seems we now know Rove's talked to Cooper bout Wilson BEFORE Novak, giving him the administrations side re: Wilsons' Op-Ed slam. Nothing nefarious there, that's sorta Rove's job. So, what was he talking bout?

Seems likely that he would be telling Cooper/Novak/Miller that Wilson's not some 'disinterested apolitcial' - and in doing so, seems reasonable that he'd let slip that Wilson's wife works for the CIA and was in on picking him for the job.

Why mention it at all? Probably as a way of saying Wilson's part and parcel of the CIA's institionional antipathy toward regime change in Iraq, they're old school adherence to RealPolitic. That he's a guy suggested by a CIA Op. who knows him super well - his wife - that they're assured is gonna be as sceptical, CIA friendly, as they'd like him to be re: Niger. (Howard Fineman's piece - a must read to understand Plame - excellently lays out the background tensions between the CIA and Whitehouse.)

Really, this thing only had scandal 'heat' as long the leak was an example of screwing with a whistleblower's wife's job for raw, nasty retaliation for Wilson's Op-Ed. If you remember, that was Wilson's claim originally. He was running round saying his wife had nothing to do with him getting sent over there. Raw retaliation.

When he was shown to be quite wrong bout his wife's uninvovlement, the retaliation angel dissipated. Who she works for, her relation to him here becomes relevant for the reasons I wrote above. Certainly worth the leaker's commenting on, assuming you leaker doesn't know her CIA role is covert. And if this - a State Dept. memo of the meeting is how the leaker came ot know of Plame's role - a document making no mention of her covert status - the leaker likely didn't know and thought no harm in mentioning her CIA affiliation to the leakee.

Furthermore, it seems fairly certain Plame doesn't qualify as a protected person under the statute. In short, there's no crime even without having to wade into Luskin's (Rove's lawyer)the "knowingly disclose," hedge/buzzword getting tossed around now.

So where are we now? Though I concede it's a shame Plame was outed at all - if the CIA was still using her as in a quasi-cover capacity, I'm sure they had their reasons, and it shouldn't have happened - but there's doesn't appear to be any crime, and since no ugly 'retaliaion', no real scandal heat (at least outside lefty blogs) BUT... the cover up. Always the cover up.

Someone, (the original leaker?) may have lied to the Grand Jury bout what they did. That seems to be Fitzgerald's track now, not the original crime.

I almost think that's worse. Besides lying to GJ being very bad stuff for which people must go to jail, we're gonna be forced to listen to a bunch of talking heads again sagely intoning that the 'cover up is always worse than the crime.' And they'll be right. The schmucks.