Captain Ed is reporting that the NYT has a story for today claiming that it is Novak who told Rove about Plame, not the other way around. So before you read about the hysterical Kerry connection, digest this:
Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.
After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too."
The previously undisclosed telephone conversation, which took place on July 8, 2003, was initiated by Mr. Novak, the person who has been briefed on the matter said.
The Captain expounds:
...it turns out that Novak called Rove. Just like the earlier revelation about Rove's conversation with Cooper, Novak called Rove and started out by asking Rove about a completely different subject. He wanted a comment about the promotion of a Janet Reno aide to a key counterterrorism job at the White House, and only filled Rove in on Plame after getting Rove's reaction to his initial query.
That flies in the face of any notion that Rove set out to damage Wilson or Plame.
If true, this could pretty much sink Rove-Plame. About the only thing the left had left was the possibility that Rove set out to "out" Plame. If both Novak and Cooper initiated the phone calls, on unrelated matters, there is no conspiracy.
So who is Judith Miller protecting. Could it be Novak? Does it even matter?
UPDATE: Mark in Mexico and Not Another Right Wing Blog have the skinny on the Wolf Blitzer-Joe Wilson interview, in which Wilson drops yet another bombshell.
My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.
That would seem to be case closed wouldn't it?
UPDATE: Liberal Larry puts this national security nightmare in perspective.
The overlying importance of this whole Plamegate scandal is that it perfectly illustrates how far the Republicans will go to destroy a true American hero. We saw it when they invented a group of phony Veterans known as "The Swift Boat Liars" to besmirch the heroism of Sen. John Kerry, a thrice-wounded Vietnam vet with eight Purple Hearts, 17 Medals of Honor, and a Cap'n Crunch Super Sailor Badge with clusters.
And Lileks adds his two cents, which is actually worth much more, of course.
In any case I’m amused how this Scandal seems disconnected from the issue of yellowcake in light of the post 9/11 atmosphere. Given all the tales in the 90s about the threat Saddam faced – a threat everyone accepted when Clinton was launching strikes and pulling serious faces – the idea that the whole Niger-yellowcake nexus should have gotten a big shrug in 2002, when the WTC rubble still smoked, seems to be another act of willful amnesia. If anyone in 02 could have thought we’d be parsing who said what about which agent re a politically motivated rewrite of the intel, they’d have heaved a sigh of relief: so we didn’t get hit again.
UPDATE: The Washington Times adds the coup de grace:
A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.
It would seem to me that this entire story is about to go the way of the dodo bird. If Plame is not a covert agent than this whole exercise is academic. Without that charge the rest fall apart. Rove could have given Osama Bin Laden Plame's actual name and it still wouldn't be a crime.
Also posting: Sister Toldja, Everything I Know is Wrong, Right Wing News, Malkin
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