Right Wing Nut House

The Karl Rove resignation watch continues here at the House with more information on the scandal being released like a Chinese water torture. And, just as the purpose of that torture is to drive the poor bastard experiencing it insane, the lefties are frothing at the mouth like rabid dogs with every new revelation.

You’ll recall yesterday that the secret Grand Jury testimony of Mr. Rove was published in several media outlets. It’s pretty much of a forgone conclusion in Washington scandals where there is a Special Prosecutor that testimony given before the Grand Jury is about as secret as the #1 telephone number for oral phone sex (1-900-BLOWME. Ask for Linda).

Today’s revelations involves a State Department memo that discussed Joe Wilson’s heroic campaign to undermine the credibility of the Administration and to carry out the wishes of his wife and the faction she was part of at CIA who were at war with the White House over Iraq policy. Those wishes involved not just Wilson’s bogus trip to Niger to investigate what his wife so objectively put as “crazy” information about the Iraqis and yellow cake, but to also have Mr. Wilson act as a conduit for information from the CIA to the press, most notably WAPO’s Walter Pincus.

Pincus could turn out to be the key player in the entire affair as apparently it was his source or sources who not only knew that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA but that her maiden name was Plame. It’s pretty certain Rove never spoke to Pincus about Wilson, Plame, or Niger yellow cake so the question of culpability for the Plame leak has narrowed to two people; Former DCIA George Tenet and perhaps Ari Fleisher, the President’s former press secretary.

And one other drop that hit Mr. Rove’s head today was the publication of evidence in the case that should be secret but is evidently as easy to get as the #1 web address for “Terrorist Apologists.” This was an email sent by Rove to Stephen Hadley, National Security Council Advisor for the Administration immediately after Rove’s session with Times reporter Matt Cooper:

After mentioning a CIA operative to a reporter, Bush confidant Karl Rove alerted the president’s No. 2 security adviser about the interview and said he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations the operative’s husband was making about faulty Iraq intelligence.

The July 11, 2003, e-mail between Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is the first showing an intelligence official knew Rove had talked to Matthew Cooper just days before the Time magazine reporter wrote an article identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA officer.

“I didn’t take the bait,” Rove wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press, recounting how Cooper tried to question him about whether President Bush had been hurt by the new allegations.

My head is hurting from trying to keep all the players straight and fit them in the timeline so, instead of doing the hard, grinding work necessary for a good blog post, I’m going to be really lazy and instead refer you to Tom Maguire who I guarantee you will be so sick of this scandal’s twists and turns in another week he’ll wish he never started.

Be that as it may, see Tom’s post here on the State Department memo and go here for some great info and deductions on the probable culprit in this scandal-that-has-no-name-yet.