If there's one thing Karl Rove
isn't, it's stupid. Hate him all you want, but the guy knows what he's doing. I am inclined to believe that he had nothing to do (at least directly) with the outing scandal - my reasoning below the fold:
- Rove has a history of baiting liberals and the media for the sole purpose of diffusing and discrediting a story. If a charge comes out prematurely, and is proven to be false, the entire story loses all credibility and everyone moves on. This has happened many times, all with Rove at the helm.
- He knows we hate him with a passion, so what better way to throw the case for a loop than using himself as bait to get us on the wrong track? Cooper said his source allowed his name to be mentioned. If Rove has anything to hide, why would he do this? Smells like bait, to me.
- Rove is smarter than this. No high level (or at least "high exposure") administration official would do something so stupid themselves. Whoever the true leaker is, they would have an underling fall-guy waiting in the wings. I find it very, very hard to believe that Rove personally leaked to anyone, this is just politics 101 after all.
My thinking is that Rove saw a golden opportunity to discredit the entire investigation. He presented himself as a potential subject or target of the investigation to get media attention, knowing he had plausable deniability on his side, if not outright having nothing to hide at all. Once it came out, which I bet it will this week, that he could not have been the source, the media will start asking whether or not the investigation is just a witch hunt etc... I smell a propaganda war coming, and you can bet no senior official will roll for this crime if we keep barking up the wrong tree.
For now, however, we need to not get too obsessed with Rove and start asking the right questions rather than letting our hatred of Rove blind us. If Rove got the info from Novak, then who leaked that info to Novak in the first place? That's the million dollar question. Let's not get caught up on trying to hang this around Rove's neck, you can be sure this story goes further than him.