a rove by any other plame

so now it's undeniable that karl rove was involved in the valerie plame leak. we know this despite the fact that the white house has been explicitly saying for two years that he was not involved:

Q All right. Let me just follow up. You said this morning, "The President knows" that Karl Rove wasn't involved. How does he know that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. I saw some comments this morning from the person who made that suggestion, backing away from that. And I said it is simply not true. So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove --

that was september 30, 2003. so did rove lie then, when they allegedly asked about his involvement? or was scotty lying when he said he'd spoken to rove? or maybe was the lie that he had spoken to rove, and he & the president knew rove was involved, but scotty denied it anyway?

both the president and his spokesman also said that if there was a leaker in the administration, he would be fired. so will rove be fired? scotty was proud to say it then, but now he's just saying that he "can't comment". uh-huh.

but it gets weirder... remember that miraculously last-minute communique that matt cooper supposedly got from his source, personally clearing him to testify (despite rove already having signed a waiver that released everyone from their confidentiality agreements on the issue), and saving him from going to jail? well, the nytimes is reporting that it didn't quite happen like that:

"A short time ago," Mr. Cooper said, "in somewhat dramatic fashion, I received an express personal release from my source."

But the facts appear more complicated than they seemed in court. Mr. Cooper, it turns out, never spoke to his confidential source that day, said Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for the source, who is now known to be Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.

The development was actually the product of a frenzied series of phone calls initiated that morning by a lawyer for Mr. Cooper and involving Mr. Luskin and the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald. And the calls were the culmination of days of anxiety and introspection by a reporter who by all accounts wanted to live up to his pledge to protect his confidential source yet find a way to avoid going to jail as another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, was about to do.

Mr. Cooper and his personal lawyer, Richard A. Sauber, declined to comment on the negotiations, but Mr. Sauber said that Mr. Cooper had used the word "personal" to mean specific. Representatives of Mr. Fitzgerald did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(josh marshall has an interesting take on this story here.)

not that luskin is a very trustworthy source: marshall has also been looking into luskin's past and found some big skeletons, like when luskin took half a million dollars in gold bars from a client who "who was trying to appeal his conviction on charges that he laundered drug money through precious metals dealers." interesting.

and now that rove has been exposed, why is judy miller still in jail? who is she protecting? she can't really protect rove anymore (unless her info is significantly more incriminating than what has come out already), so why hasn't she stepped forward to testify? could it be that she had an active role in the plame outing and she's actually trying to protect herself?

update: dj empirical points our attention to this full transcript in editor&publisher.¶