2+2

the washington post now has its own variation on the "novak's 2nd leak" story. and this story pretty obviously comes from the same anonymous source as the nytimes and AP stories i blogged this morning. but it adds one crucial piece of information: that the anonymous source is a "lawyer":

White House senior adviser Karl Rove indirectly confirmed the CIA affiliation of an administration critic's wife for Robert D. Novak the week before the columnist named her and revealed her position, a lawyer involved in the case said last night.

The operative, Valerie Plame, is the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who had publicly disputed the White House's contention that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy uranium from Niger for possible use in a nuclear weapon.

The lawyer, who has knowledge of the conversations between Rove and prosecutors, said President Bush's deputy chief of staff has told investigators that he first learned about the operative from a journalist and that he later learned her name from Novak.

now what "lawyer" who is "working on the case" and even "has knowledge" about rove's testimony (not to mention rove's personal conversations with robert novak) would possibly want to talk to the press about this? and not just one reporter: the lawyer clearly shopped the story to at least three different outlets to ensure that it would be published.

my first post from this morning analyzed all the obvious contradictions in what the source was telling the times. my second post this morning linked to an article that analyzed all the obvious contradictions in statements that robert luskin has given to the press. through the magic of synchnocity, it turns out that if you add my first two posts of the morning together, their sum is this post. and this revelation:

luskin was clearly the source for the "novak's 2nd source" leak. it wasn't 100% obvious at first, because the times and AP articles only referenced their source as a "person". but now that the post has outed the source as a "lawyer", there is only one possible explanation.

hunter at dkos shows he too knows how to add. (in fact, he put it together before i did, as he read the post article first, but i had to post it here and "show my work" so to speak, because i had already laid out most of the proof in my previous two posts.) ¶