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July 10, 2005

Rockin' In the Free World

There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them
So I try to forget it, any way I can.

Isikoff brings us one step closer to Rove as the Plame leaker:

For two years, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been investigating the leak of Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent. The leak was first reported by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak apparently made some arrangement with the prosecutor, but Fitzgerald continued to press other reporters for their sources, possibly to show a pattern (to prove intent) or to make a perjury case. (It is illegal to knowingly identify an undercover CIA officer.) Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did—and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper's lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.

Via Hunter, the usual caveat Administration ass coverings apply:

Rove claimed to the FBI that he only found out Wilson's wife was CIA from reading Novak's column, and called reporters only after that point.

Novak published on the 14th.

Busted.

Update [2005-7-10 3:45:56 by Hunter]: Oh boy -- hang on -- this is playing the razor's edge. Is there is some possibility Rove could have found out "from Novak's column" on the 11th? Novak's column was apparently "written" by then, but not actually published until the 14th. Dangerous, dangerous ground. Look for the talking points from hell, once everyone wakes up in the morning.

Update [2005-7-10 4:23:18 by Hunter]: From the Washington Post, Nov 26th 2004:

While Novak's column did not run until Monday, July 14, it could have been seen by people in the White House or the media as early as Friday, July 11, when the Creators Syndicate distributed it over the Associated Press wire.
Cooper talked to Rove at 11:07am, according to Newsweek. You can bet Fitzgerald has already determined precisely when Novak's column hit the wires.

The cynic in me knows that even if Rove is outed as the leaker...the GOP sound machine will put a wall up around Bush/Rove. "It wasn't illegal because Rove didn't know she was covert" and the diversionary tactic they've already trotted out on Wilson's trip not being a White House sanctioned junket. The Bush Blind will once again be boiled down to the moral equivalent of the definition of "is".

The more this story is revealed, the more I'm certain this entire thing comes back to the Downing Street Memos and the mislead into Iraq. The problem with coverups is...they rarely stay covered up.

Posted by Carla at July 10, 2005 10:40 AM