The Plame Name Blame Game

Or so I rhymingly call the budding scandal involving the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame by a "Bush administration official" - whose own identity is increasingly looking like that of chief Bush adviser Karl Rove. As a result of recent revelations that Time reporter Matthew Cooper had talked to Rove about the firestorm involving Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for revealing the fraudulence of the claim that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Africa, Rove may very well have been the leaker. The information now available suggests that Rove seems only to have mentioned her by association rather than by name, and that her name might have been simultaneously leaked by someone else, but it's far too inconclusive to let Rove off the hook. If anything, it makes him look more and more like the guilty party. If this were a spy novel, Rove would end up being innocent despite the building evidence against him (an old literary trick), but that's not likely to happen. Rove - who looks like Rush Limbaugh's long-lost brother - has a major reputation for taking underhanded measures to maintain the viability of the administration and reduce the Democrats to token opposition.

At least Bush will leave office at the end of his term (hurry, 2009!). Karl Rove will remain active in Republican circles far longer then that. :-O