Newsweek's Michael Isikoff has just published a damning article clearly identifying Karl Rove as Time journalist Matt Cooper's source in the Valerie Plame CIA outing case.

Isikoff does more than use Cooper's email threads to show that Rove was in fact Cooper's "double super secret" source. His Newsweek piece reveals the outlines of the coming Rove defense. For Democrats still smarting from Al Gore's pounding in the Buddhist temple fundraising scandal, it is a hauntingly familiar: "No Controlling Legal Authority."

In a nutshell, it appears that Rove and his attorney Robert Luskin will argue that (a) he didn't knowingly reveal CIA agent Plame's identity; and (b) his intent was to not to out Plame, but prevent Time from running erroneous stories about Iraq and uranium in Niger.

Rove's Name Game

Rove's tightope walk started months ago. Last year, Rove told CNN that it was all about what naming names means:

"Well, I'll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name."

Isikoff shows that Cooper's Time emails reflect this same care when it came to Rove naming names:

"It was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip."

Secrets and Lies on Niger

Beyond merely denying that he technically revealed Valerie Plame's name and identity as a CIA agent, the Rove defense is that he was trying to prevent Cooper from running an error-filled story in Time. The problem with this, of course, is that Rove's statements here are themselves lies:

Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip."

"not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ... "

As Lawrence O'Donnell wrote over at The Huffington Post, it may well be difficult to prove that Rove technically and knowingly broke the law in the Plame case. That doesn't, however, mean you can't offer your own verdict for the man President Bush affectionately calls "Turdblossom."

—Perrspective 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) |