Good News, Bad News

OK, let's get the good news out of the way--if this is true--and this--and this--then Messrs. Rove and Libby might want to start looking towards the next phase of a typical prosecution--the Let's Make a Deal part:

The other big news: Secret State Dept memo was actual Top Secret, No Foreign - which is a big deal
by John in DC - 7/22/2005 12:03:00 AM

The memo was apparently even more highly classified than has been let alone, according to a story reportedly appearing in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal (a WSJ editor apparently appeared on Countdown and said this tonight).
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People who have been briefed on the case said the White House officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, were helping prepare what became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address six months earlier.

They had exchanged e-mail correspondence and drafts of a proposed statement by George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the address. Mr. Rove, the president's political strategist, and Mr. Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their efforts with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, who was in turn consulting with Mr. Tenet.

At the same time, they were grappling with the fallout from an Op-Ed article on July 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Mr. Wilson, a former diplomat, in which he criticized the way the administration had used intelligence to support the claim in Mr. Bush's speech.
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Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people 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 Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity, the person said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.

Oh, and Ari Fleischer probably has scheduled significant face time with HIS attorney:

On the same day the memo was prepared, White House phone logs show Novak placed a call to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, according to lawyers familiar with the case and a witness who has testified before the grand jury. Those people say it is not clear whether Fleischer returned the call, and Fleischer has refused to comment.

The Novak call may loom large in the investigation because Fleischer was among a group of administration officials who left Washington later that day on a presidential trip to Africa. On the flight to Africa, Fleischer was seen perusing the State Department memo on Wilson and his wife, according to a former administration official who was also on the trip.

I guess the real question will be which rats desert the heavily listing USS George Dubya and Dick and which ones will stick around and continue gnawing at the deck chairs...still, this story continues to have legs, which is a pleasant surprise. Team Bush thought they could stifle the rapidly unraveling web of lies they wove two years ago with a quick head fake (the Roberts nomination). Turns out the press can actually focus on two issues at once...

However, while this small taste of schadenfreude is nice enough (and the schaden part couldn't have happened to a more deserving individual), the US House renewed the Orwellian named Patriot Act, while a similar measure passed through the Senate Judiciary Committee--this means, should the full Senate vote yes, the two houses will work out a compromise. So much for the 1st and 4th Amendments...

And, I guess most folks are aware of even MORE trouble in London. Geez...two days in a row...however, without trying to minimize the significance of yesterday's failed bombings and today's shooting, this Telegraph article points out that even the July 7th horror is, for Iraqis, the equivalent of merely a couple of days (for instance--yesterday's violence claimed twenty victims, and two Algerian diplomats were taken hostage.

And, just because I could (thanks to some, um, medication), I managed to watch Nightline yesterday--Cynthia McFadden was assigned to do a puff piece--rivaled only by David Brooks's BIZARRE effort on behalf of John Roberts--on Pervez Busharraf, I mean Musharraf. Pervez actually engaged in a bit of Brit tweaking, noting that fundamentalist Islam isn't confined to the Tribal Belt, but flourishes in places like...England itself. He likewise defended Pakistan's less-than-enthusiastic effort to go after bin Laden, although his demeanor more closely resembled that of recent Scott McClellan public appearances--although, to be fair, the bombs tossed at Scotty are figurative...Pervez has to deal with real ones. Something tells me that Musharraf isn't really into practical jokes involving sudden, loud noises.