Remember that anonymous source for the NY Times known as  "someone who has officially been briefed on the matter" who gave them the "a journalist did it" scoop? 

Well, it looks like his real name is:  Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer. 

I had heard something to this effect last night, but it appears the Sunni delegation to the constitutional committee has left and is currently boycotting the proceedings.   

It gets hot and heavy.

Bloomberg's Richard Keil will reveal tonight: "Two top White House aides have given accounts to the special prosecutor about how reporters told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to persons familiar with the case.

Lewis “Scooter'’ Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn’t tell Libby of Plame’s identity.

And some people call me cynical......

Question: When was the last time a President interrupted primetime network broadcasting at 9pm to present his Supreme Court pick?

Look familiar?

Yep.

Al-Jaafari, for his part, expressed pleasure over his meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei. He called the late Imam Khomeini the key to the victory of the Islamic Revolution, adding, “We hope to eliminate the dark pages Saddam caused in Iran-Iraq ties and open a new chapter in brotherly ties between the two nations.”

Everyone knows the truth:

Some people just don't tell it.  (Thanks, Al)

Bush starts to auger in.  You can imagine what the effect will be on his approval numbers.  Now the hammer and the anvil.  The Christian Right does not understand that Bush's position has degraded to the point it has.  If they push him on his nominee and retreat from him they way they have deserted the Republicans in the Senate, there's no limit to how low Bush can go.  The 25% here who believe Bush is cooperating with the prosecutor are probably his floor.  They'll believe he always tells the truth.  They haven't realized it yet.  Pretty much everyone else knows he lies all day long.

Ironically, they don't even know the danger.   True believers, they are eating up what Ken Mehlman has to say right now.  That means that they do not understand the danger and will push for a conservative nominee, undermining Bush at his weakest.  Too bad for them it appears some people from the White House are going to be indicted.

Another hammer and anvil--the August 15 deadline for Iraq to write a constitution.  The Sunnis will be out in main force strength.  We need to beef up troops IMMEDIATELY.  I hope they have planned for a big upsurge in violence.  Iraq needs us now and Bush keeps letting it down.

The worst of it?  Afghanistan is the deep dark secret Bush doesn't want you to know.   

How about Tim Russert coming to life?  Everybody, a hand for Rusty Jr.

Yep, he stood up and did what we asked: Put Ken Mehlman on the spot about whether they were going to go after the prosecutor.

MR. RUSSERT:  You say you have tremendous confidence in Pat Fitzgerald.

MR. MEHLMAN:  I do.

MR. RUSSERT:  If, in fact, he indicts White House officials, will you accept that indictment and not fight it?

MR. MEHLMAN:  First of all, I'm the chairman of the Republican National Committee.  I'm not an attorney for anybody.  The fact is I look forward to his getting to the bottom of this.  I can't speak for...

MR. RUSSERT:  But if he indicts White House officials...

MR. MEHLMAN:  Right.

MR. RUSSERT:  ...will you pledge today, because you have tremendous confidence in him, that you will not criticize his decision?

MR. MEHLMAN:  Again, I'm not going to speculate.  I have tremendous confidence in him.  I look to getting to the bottom of this.  Whatever he does, I can assure you, people are going to follow and are going to look to abide by.

MR. PODESTA:  Just say "yes," Ken.

Podesta:  "Just say "yes," Ken."  Brutal.  That's the problem with the Big Lie.  You can't stop.

Once again, if you weren't paying attention.  Karl Rove's confirmation of Valerie Plame's CIA status to Robert Novak is enough to trigger liability if he knew of her covert status.  Its all in the code: 50 U.S.C. sec. 421: 

(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent

    Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified 
information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any          
information identifying such covert agent to any individual not 
authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the 
information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the 
United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert 
agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined          
not more than $50,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

If Rove confirmed that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, he has disclosed information identifying a covert agent. This is how it should be.  Information confirming information heard from another source is extremely valuable.  That's why reporters and spies double and triple source information.  That information should not be passing to reporters and spies.

By the way, it appears there is a subersive at the University of Missouri who has the gall to post the security laws of the United States where its citizens can see it.  Don't go to this site!

UPDATE: Sunday 11:52 PM: Turns out that my interpretation is right.  Karl Rove was required to sign an SF-312 (.pdf) a form consisting of the agreement.  Specifically mentioned in the Form is the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.  Lets hear Tim Russert tell it: 

MR. RUSSERT:    When one is given classified clearance, they are asked to sign an oath, and they are given a briefing book with form--Standard Form 312, it's called.  And if you read this briefing book, it says this:  . . . "If it has not...confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure."

So by confirming a story from Robert Novak or sharing information with Matt Cooper, no matter where it came from, if, in fact, it was classified information, without seeking to determine whether it was declassified, it is an unauthorized disclosure.

MR. MEHLMAN:  Well, you're making an assumption that it's classified information.

And Mehlman passes right over Russert's insight that Rove has admitted to almost every element of the crime in the public discourse.

Hell, the damn thing gives the U.S. Government to go after book royalties made off the disclosure.

Sherman Adams, the chief of staff to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, left the White House in a cloud of scandal in 1958 after accepting a vicuna fur coat from a business friend who had interests at the White House.

I couldn't after the first two paragraphs.

Since the blow-up over Rove has reignited the need of partisan Republicans to go after the Wilson's one more time, I think we should knock another talking point down before it crops up here at The Iron Mouth. 

Now I don't know what number it is in the list sent out by the RNC, but a popular attack line against Joe Wilson that usually fits somewhere between, "Rove was just warning Cooper off a bad story" and "His wife sent him to Niger, not Dick Cheney" is "After all, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigated this and said that Wilson's conclusion were wrong."  As the Brookings Institution's Ivo Daalder notes, the Iraq Survey Group, who scoured the country for the better part of a year and a half, concluded in its final report that there was no evidence, I repeat, no evidence that Iraq tried to buy radioactive materials from another country after 1991.   

Sorry, the Iraq Survey Group gets the last word on the subject and basically confirmed what Wilson was saying about Niger yellow cake and Iraq in 2003.  Frankly, I think I'll take the word of the people who wasted all those months tearing Iraq apart looking for WMD's that weren't there over "cover your ass" political documents like the Butler report and the findings of the SSCI any day.

As for the Wilson quote I refer you to the transcript:

BLITZER:  But the other argument that's been made against you is that you've sought to capitalized on this extravaganza, having that photo shoot with your wife, who was a clandestine officer with the CIA, and that you've tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all of that..

What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations,as you know, that have been leveled against you?

WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.
BLITZER:  But she hadn't been a clandestine officer for some time before that?

WILSON:  That's not anything I can talk about.  And indeed I go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that's why they referred it to the Justice Deparment.

If "context" means anything, then you'd agree that they are talking about Wilson's actions (Vanity Fair, book deal etc.) since his wife was outed.  Wilson is not confirming that his wife wasn't undercover but is instead attacking Novak.  Poorly worded, but an attack nonetheless otherwise there really isn't anything to keep him from confirming Blitzer's assertion that she wasn't undercover previous to being revealed by Novak.  Instead, he says, as he should, the he can't directly talk about it and refers to the actions taken by the CIA as he has repeatedly in the past.

Quick someone tell Fox that the London bombings haven't stirred an anticipated upsurge in support for the President.

I think if you're the media you have to ask yourself, "How many times does a man have to get hit in the head before he knows whose doing the hitting?"  I particularly love the New York Times using an obviously disinterested and anonymous White House source, a.k.a "someone who has officially been briefed on the matter" to help back up the new Rove defense strategy of blaming somebody else, a.k.a "a reporter". 

The recent full court press of Republican operatives blanketing the news shows with the same mendacious talking points purporting some altruistic patriotic whistleblower trying to undermine some treacherous peacenik hiding behind his CIA wife's skirt evidently didn't create enough obfuscation?

Payback delivering beatdowns to the Bush Administration.

The Republicans defended Karl Rove to the man today.  Why, when White House officials privately indicate that they expect at least one indictment by the end of the year?  Because they don't want Rove to be the indicted one.  They've selected a fall guy.  The only question is: is Libby Liddy?

Four.  [gufawwing]

What is the number of car bombings in Fallujah in recent weeks?

What do the Democratic National Convention, Plamegate, and Bush Political Intelligence Leaks have in common?

This

Simon, start up the Waaaay-back Machine.

Cut to the Democratic National Convention, Boston, Mass.  The Administration has an unwelcome suprise for the Kerry campaign.  A "special terrorist alert," nationally annouced, which covered only a few buildings in the entire country.  To counter charges of playing politics, the Administration included, for the first time, evidence of the source of the intelligence came from.  It came from Naeem Noor Khan.  

Khan was a first--a live Al Qaeda leader who agreed to work as a double agent.

Khan's computer contained two sets of plans--one for a coordinated attack on the financial buildings Bush's "alert" concerned.  The other plans involved a multiple-bomb plot on the London Underground.  Pakistani intelligence had opened Pandora's box.  They were able to infiltrate an active Al Qaeda operation while it was going on.  This was more than stopping a plot, it was the intelligence opportunity of the war--the inner workings of Al Qaeda at our fingertips.  

The operation was paying off, too.  Mr. Naeem Noor Khan was in communication with an Al Qaeda cell in Luton, England.  MI-5 had them in their sights.  They were going to reel in the whole lot.

Until Bush's announcement, that is.  The Pakistanis were tipped by the announcement--and the British police swept 12 of them up.  The Administration publicly apologized to Britain for the incident in September, 2004. 

Unbeknownst to the British, 6 other members avoided the dragnet.  On Thursday, July 7, 2005, four of them left for London on the train from Luton.

Bush needs allies and his right wing badly.  Expect the SCOTUS nomination to please Dobson now.  Its exactly what Bush doesn't need.

Any time he gets his mug on TV, every reporter and Democratic talking head needs to ask Ken Mehlman:  Do you think this prosecutor is a good prosecutor?  Do you think he has run an honest investigation?  We need him saying it on tape at least fifty times.  Because they will be singing another tune soon enough.