Exactly Who Outed Valerie Plame?

Like Polipundit, I thought the footage of yesterday's White House press briefing, in which David Gregory and Terry Moran became unglued was quite funny. Personally I think the ire that was displayed covers the embarrassment of the MSM for not having covered the story properly in the first place, and frustration from the TV folks specifically because Rove does not talk to them.

The revelation of Karl Rove’s contact with Matt Cooper is not sufficient to result in the feeding frenzy (to put it mildly) that erupted today. What the partisan David Gregory and Terry Moran were reacting to was not the contents of Matt Cooper’s notes and email, but to the very name of Karl Rove.

Indeed, I saw Gregory on Hardball last night, and along with Mathews and another guest, the entire 15-minute segment of outrage against Rove failed to mention even once that the Wilson op-ed was a giant pile of steaming crap.

Hugh Hewitt is on to something here:

Lorie asks why such focus on Rove, and the answer is clearly that --unlike the war or the SCOTUS nomination-- the Plame Affair is about journalists, and this makes it very, very important to journalists.

To complete Hugh's thought if I may be so bold, the reason this story is very important to journalists is because it is they who released Valeris Plame's identity. Think about it...

Given the evidence that has been presented to this point, there was no reason to release her identity. The information given was to assist journalists in their pursuit of truth. A couple of ph0ne calls and the media could have confirmed that neither Tenet, Cheney or the CIA in general had sanctioned the trip. That would have been enough to place Wilson's allegations in a suspicious light.

Furthermore, if the reporting regarding Plame's decidedly-not-secret identity are true, it is reasonable to assume that some, if not most, of the reporters in question already knew who Plame was and had not reported that fact. Suddenly they get a vague e-mail from Karl Rove and they climb all over themselves to name names? That dog, as they say, does not hunt.

The MSM is going after Rove because if the spotlight is taken off of him for even a second, there is the possibility that it will turn right back onto them. It is they, after all, who "outed" Valerie Plame. And it is they who now want to crucify Karl Rove.

Does anybody else see a pattern here?

UPDATE: Malkin has lots of links on the subject today, including one to Media Blog, which theorizes that Judith Miller is the leak.

Miller also had done extensive reporting on WMD based on secret CIA sources, and Plame worked on WMD for the CIA — it's likely that she knew who Plame was. Kincaid told me that this theory was based on his own analysis of the case, but he also drew my attention to this Washington Post article:

Sources close to the investigation say there is evidence in some instances that some reporters may have told government officials — not the other way around — that Wilson was married to Plame, a CIA employee.

Wouldn't that be an interesting twist?

Also posting: Rightwing Nuthouse