Rove at the bottom of the barrel

The Valerie Plame case is coming to a head, as we've discussed repeatedly over at Running Scared. With Time Magazine turning over Matt Cooper's notes to the Justice Department, and the odds growing that unindicted felon Bob Novak already turned over his source, (or is being given a pass by GOP friendly investigators) we may soon know who outed Plame. Leaks are running wild, and they are all pointing in one direction... Karl Rove was the leaker.

This would be a shocking revelation, but not from the idea that Rove could be responsible for such a move. Let's face it... the ghost of Machiavelli, interviewed by a psychic medium last year, described Rove as "a little bit scary." No, what would be amazing is the possibility that Rove had done it directly and actually left his own fingerprints on some of his dirty handiwork. If Karl has become famous for anything during his career of pimping George Bush up from the anonymous ranks of coke binging frat boys to the height of world power, it has been his ability to remain the impervious, "Teflon Don" of the Bush team.

Joe Gandelman points out some important questions which the Rove implication raises.

1)The big story now that'll dominate the news (unless some OTHER monster story trumps it) is the Supreme Court seat opening. If it turns out to be Rove will this story get coverage or be shunted to the media's back burner?

(2)THE key argument used by GOPers during the Clinton impeachment was that Clinton perjured himself and that absolutely could not be tolerated. It didn't matter what he perjured himself on. What kind of (inevitable) arguments of defense will Rove's defenders come up with...if this proves to be true?

(3)This would be a highly serious matter. Would Rove face any kind of punishment or a slap on the wrist?

The American Prospect has a long and very detailed analysis of recently revealed information regarding who knew exactly what exactly when.

President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, told the FBI in an interview last October that he circulated and discussed damaging information regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame with others in the White House, outside political consultants, and journalists, according to a government official and an attorney familiar with the ongoing special counsel's investigation of the matter.

If any of that information proves true (which is looking more and more likely) we will reach a real "crunch time" point in this investigation. Let's face it... up until now, it was not impossible for any reasonable mind to believe that the Plame leak came from some lower level Bush administration functionaries out to earn credit points with the boss by making Joe Wilson look bad. You might strongly suspect that Bush and Rove must have known about, if not personally sanctioned the action. But that would be difficult if not impossible to prove. If, however, Rove can be placed as the man who illegally released the damaging information for political reasons then who but the most koolaid drunk ideologue could say that Bush wasn't personally in the loop on this?

TalkLeft took on the question of Rove's "truthfulness" in his testimony on this matter to date, and what it could mean for him as this investigation wraps up.

Can anyone spell Perjury? Mr. Luskin may have his work cut out for him now.

MSNBC senior political analyst Lawrence O'Donnell was a bit more blunt.

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

Other panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.

Hang on to your hats, folks. This one is going to get interesting. My prediction? Rove will be proven to be totally complicit in this politically motivated, illegal partisan attack on Joe Wilson. But in the end, he will not only not be taken down, but rewarded by Bush for his loyalty, just as so many of his cronies have before him.