Blogging Straight to the Point

I've been wrestling with my computer tonight as it continues to freeze up on me. I've lost two blog entry pages, and it's getting very late, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to be clever, but I'll leave you with a couple of nuggets to click on and ponder.

As I predicted (and hoped desperately), the scintillating nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court only caused a very temporary diversion from all the speculation over Karl Rove. It was the lead story in today's Washington Post, and it's got a meaty place in The New York Times tomorrow, which features the introduction of Karen Hughes and John Bolton as players in the scandal. In addition, both AMERICAblog and Atrios are reporting that tomorrow's Wall Street Journal will feature even more damning information about the top-secret memo (possibly the original source to out Joe Wilson's wife as a CIA agent) that's been described in various places over the last couple of days. What the WSJ adds to the picture is the fact that the information in the memo was not only labeled secret and not to be passed around to others, it was specifically not be shared with foreigners, a higher level of secret. That makes the Plame leak a much larger issue for the CIA than what we've been told so far, and it starts to explain why the agency asked for this investigation in the first place.

It's a fair question about why Rove might leak this information. I was most amused at the idea that he just wanted to help journalists avoid mistake. It's really too bad that a similar call couldn't have been placed to Dan Rather before he went on the air in support of the forged documents about W's hitch in the Texas air national guard. The Architect could have helped Rather hold on to the anchor's chair until he was ready to leave on his own terms. But I guess Rove can't be everywhere at once, no matter how hard he tries. And, according to this essay by Charlie Pierce at The American Prospect online edition, he tries very hard indeed.