I can well understand the urge of some to find one of the most powerful and ruthless men in Washington to be a liar or a criminal. But I have to say there’s no incontrovertible evidence yet of either, although his lawyer seems to have tied himself up in knots. We seem to know, thanks to Newsweek and now the NYT, that Rove confirmed to both Matt Cooper and Bob Novak that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. We do not know that Rove disclosed her name precisely, or knew that she was under-cover. We are also told so far that the calls were initiated by the reporters, not the other way round. The Cooper call seems unremarkable to me. As Mike McCurry points out in HuffPuffnStuff:
Rove was making a late week heads up call to the White House news magazine reporter and, believe me, that is not the time or place to dish major strategy. A two-minute call such as the one now reported is basically to get the signals straight — green, yellow, red. Rove seems to have been telling Cooper that the yellowcake story was a flashing yellow and he needed to be cautious.
McCurry is no GOP spinner. The interesting question is how Rove knew of Plame’s identity and role. Confirming something raised by reporters or warning a reporter off a hot story is not the same thing as criminal disclosure of an undercover identity. Rove may have known he was flirting with danger – hence the “double super secret” background. But we have no smoking gun yet; and someone else may be the real guilty party. It is a longstanding practice of this administration to deflect the press away from a real scandal by allowing them to get their panties in a twist over a minor one. It would be prudent for journalists and Democrats to hold their fire and wait until we have solid facts about an affair that remains cloudy before rushing to premature judgment.
The Dish 