Plame-gate

It's impossible to follow -- or even to summarize -- all of the theories and informed speculations regarding Karl Rove, Plame-gate, and the apparent get-out-of-jail-free card handed to Bob Novak. Those following the controversy should take a look at:

1. David Corn argues that Novak has "squealed." This suggestion makes sense: One cannot really picture Novak going to jail as a matter of honor -- or indeed, doing much of anything out of honor.

But, says Corn, Novak may have transformed his squealing session into a method of helping his sources. Specifically, Corn suggests that Novak may have told Fitzgerald that the sources did not specify Plame as an undercover operative.

Voila. No crime. A thuggish act of political retribution that destroyed a CIA officer's career and undermined national security, yes. But no crime. The relevant law -- the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 -- says that an offender has to "intentionally" disclose information "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies [a] covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States." Ignorance can be a defense under this act.

Not everyone buys this....

2. Josh Marshall, countering Corn, offers some thoughts as to why the "Novak cooperated" theory may be inadequate:

Perhaps Novak tried to pass off on him the convenient lie that the persons in question didn't know or didn't tell him that Plame was covert. But some careful research we did almost two years ago on this point should pretty clearly I think that Novak has been fibbing through his teeth when he says this.

For more on this careful research, see this Kos diary.

3. The Talking Points Memo Cafe offers a number of intriguing views. One poster suggests that Novak did not know who the identity of the original leaker, having received the info from a cut-out.

Another contributor argues that Novak may have taken the Fifth. Why? Because he is, in fact, a government employee, and therefore subject to the afore-cited law. If this suggestion proves true, I would be very startled -- not to learn that Novak has taken money, but that he did so officially. At any rate, if Novak pled the Fifth, I see no reason for prosecutor Fitzgerald to keep the fact secret.

Still another poster reminds us that the charge against Novak would be conspiracy -- and not, as many suppose, leaking the name of an undercover CIA operative. Even though the law applies to government employees, not to journalists, some charge must hang over Novak's head -- after all, he is not talking on advice of counsel, and counsel would not so advise if the possibility of jail were remote.

Visitors to this site will also find intriguing ideas about Judith Miller and her possible interactions with "Scooter" Libby, who has handed out waivers of confidentiality to other reporters. Did he give one to Miller as well? Presuming that he did, might she nevertheless have good reason to continue holding her tongue, even if prison be the price of discretion?

Miller has functioned as a Bush administration mouthpiece in the past, which is why some of the people speaking on her behalf have done so only after applying a clothespin to the nostrils. Who knows? She may still be serving as a "soldier" in the world's most powerful mafia.

If this scenario proves true, then -- presumably -- her current pains will fetch a later reward.

4. Another important response to Corn's piece comes from TalkLeft. This fine column makes many important points, including these:

There are are six pages of blanked out information in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals concurring opinion by Judge Tatel. It doesn't take six pages to say X got a phone call from Y who said Z. It does take 6 pages to say Y called X and said the information disclosed during the call (the Z here) appears to make a case for perjury against Y and others because Y and others told the grand jury something different...

Miller went to jail not to protect the identity of her source, which is known by Fitzgerald, but what her source told her, because she knows it would make a criminal case against the source and others and she doesn't want to be the cause of that.

If this is so, then Judith Miller is not so much protecting a source (whose identity is already known to the prosecutor) but functioning as a co-conspirator.

Which brings us to this strange tableau...

5. We now face an unprecedented spectacle: A growing number of progressives and moderates are asking journalists to divulge the identity of their sources. Kos does so here, and -- more strikingly -- Bill Israel of Editor and Publisher does so here.

In 99.9 percent of cases I know, journalists must not break the bonds of appropriate confidentiality, to protect their ability to report, and to defend the First Amendment. I've testified in court to that end, and would do so again.

But the Valerie Plame-CIA case that threatens jail time for reporters from Time and The New York Times this week is the exception that shatters the rule. In this case, journalists as a community have been played for patsies by the president's chief strategist, Karl Rove, and are enabling him to abuse the First Amendment, by their invoking it.

And what can I add to the foregoing? Have I a scenario of my own?

Not really. At least, I have yet to devise a fully-formed hypothesis.

For now, I'll note that Rove has already toyed with the defense that Plame's identity was already well-known when he (Rove) discussed it with reporters. If that assertion is true, then Rove's "get-Wilson" campaign stayed within the law, at least technically.

Even if we take this argument at face value (and I do not), note the admission here: Rove has as much as confessed that his trade consists of brutish vengeance and the smearing of opponents. Of course, everyone knew all along that revenge is, has been, and always will be Rove's forte. But the outright confession of his modus operandi remains extraordinary.

We should also consider the possibility that prosecutor Fitzgerald is not the honest player we hope him to be. So far, he hasn't touched anyone in the administration. Bob Novak, switchblade at the ready, remains free to stalk the criminal byways.

True trouble has hit only a reporter for the New York Times, the right's least-favorite publication. Consider this scenario: Perhaps Miller is no longer a neocon "soldier." Perhaps, after her own paper editorialized against her, she acquired a conscience and refused to relay further propaganda for the administration. Since no good deed goes unrewarded, she now must reap the consequences of that refusal.

Having considered several competing theories, I honestly don't know which of them will prove correct. The cynic in me leans toward the image of Fitzgerald as a sheep-jacketed lobo. But even I cannot be cynical all the damn time.