With all of the gossip and rumors flying around in the past days and weeks, two things are consistent. First, the leaks, when even vaguely sourced, are always coming from "lawyers close to the case". Since we know that they are most likely not coming from Fitzgerald's office--he's said to run a leak-free ship--that means, most likely, that the leaks are coming from a person or persons who very well might be in legal jeopardy.
The second consistent thing about these leaks and this gossip is that it is consistently anti-Libby and anti-Cheney, and consistently pro-Rove and pro-Bush. That leads me to a couple of conclusions.
First, the lawyers and the people who are leaking are either Rove, Rove's lawyers, or those friendly to Rove. Let's face it. One of the things that has come out in the last few months, without a doubt, is that Rove is the Truman Capote of the Washington gossip scene. Every reporter in Washington seems to talk to Karl. Karl is so ubiquitous that one reporter, a while back, said breathlessly that "Karl," like Madonna and Cher, was one of the few people in the world who needed no last name.
Let's just connect the dots here. There's lots of gossip. All of it is favorable to Rove. Rove, it seems, loves to gossip. He also has a track record of destroying people and leaving very few footprints. And to take it a step further, Rove is a master strategist, a man who, it has been said, is always playing many moves ahead of his opponents.
Why would that change now?
I'm not saying that the gossip is all untrue. I'm just saying, let's be cautious. Let's consider who, in many cases, the probable source is likely to be.