
Don't need a name on that one
For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.
The amount of spin and deception in that paragraph approaches infinity. You don't need anything more to know that the author is a hard right winger, probably a neocon and possibly an associate* of Rove.
There is an argument that can be made that Carl Rove can't be found guilty of any crime on the current books. It's possible that Rove didn't know that Plame was an unlisted undercover agent, just that she was CIA. In which case he wouldn't have been knowingly outing an undercover agent. More over, the technical definitions of the various things he might be charged with don't seem to stick well.
But to argue that his action where anything other then a vindictive attempt to smear Wilson is denying the obvious. Mr. Wilson was telling the truth when he said that nothing backed up the Presidents Niger Yellow Cake claim and somebody was trying to discredit him. This attempt to discredit him has done massive damage to our nuclear information network, intentional or not. It may not fit the technical legal definition of treason, but morally it obviously is.
And there is also the very interesting question of who gave that information to Rove in the first place. It is very likely that who ever gave that information to Rove is one that can be nailed for breaking the law.
Jay
* Almost said friend before I remembered that people like Rove just have a short list of people that havn't double crossed yet.