Is it Rove? Sure seems that way...

As you probably know by now, many signs now point to the identification of Karl Rove (the man who pioneered new ways to make political dirty tricks into extra-filthy tricks) as the treasonous culprit in the Plame case. Editor and Publisher has the story, as does Talking Points Memo, AmericaBlog and a host of others.

The matter is grave. One possible penalty for treason is execution. (While I do not favor the death penalty, I'll happily listen to anyone who asks me to reconsider that stance)

AmericaBlog, however, notes that the story may yet twist. (That blog's latest info derives from this MSNBC story.) The identification rests on emails turned over by Time, Inc., which employs Matt Cooper, subject of the recent Supreme Court decision.

But according to Luskin, Rove's lawyer, Rove spoke to Cooper three or four days before Novak's column appeared. Luskin told NEWSWEEK that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." Luskin declined, however, to discuss any other details. He did say that Rove himself had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. "He has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else," Luskin said. But one of the two lawyers representing a witness sympathetic to the White House told NEWSWEEK that there was growing "concern" in the White House that the prosecutor is interested in Rove.

The obvious question: If Rove really did sign that damned waiver, then why did Cooper face jail rather than reveal that he had spoken to Rove?

On the other hand, if the "waiver" story is misleading, one must ask: Is even Karl Rove that flagrant a liar? Such a move would seem to cross the line separating arrogance from psychopathology.

Most now believe that solid evidence against Rove has been discovered. We have no idea what data Novak has upchucked in private, but I doubt that so slimy a character probably could withstand pressure with stoicism or grace.

We do know, however, that Rove has used Novak in a precisely similar fashion in the past. As this article points out:

Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush Sr. campaign for trashing Robert Mosbacher, Jr., who was the chief fundraiser for the campaign and an avowed Bush loyalist. Rove accomplished this trashing of Mosbacher by planting a negative story with columnist Bob Novak. The campaign figured out that Karl had done the dirty deed, and he was given his walking papers.

Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, originally stated that he had been told by a source that Rove was responsible for the leak.

The Italian Factor: Joshua Marshall believes that the current scandal may not just unsettle Rove but will also lead to further revelations about the related conspiracy to foist bogus Niger documents onto the public. (Most believe that Plame was outed to punish Wilson for uncovering the truth about those forgeries.) Marshall has traced the fakes to an Italian spook named Rocco Martino. But, says Marshall,

This was, as you might imagine, more than enough to make us want to know a lot more. But we were never able to develop any conclusive proof about who or what was behind the SISMI colonel or what the backstory was within SISMI.

Suspicions, we had plenty. But in terms of hard facts, we hit a wall just inside SISMI.

Just who forged the documents? And, more significantly, who put the whole process in motion? And why had SISMI or elements within it involved themselves?

SISMI, you will recall, is the Italian intelligence service.

Marshall is still in his 30s, and he probably has little direct recollection of the P2 scandal of the early 1980s. What little he has heard of it, he has probably dismissed as "conspiracy theory." Screw that "theory" crap: P2 really was an honest-to-Beelzebub conspiracy. Using blackmail and other unsavory techniques, this quasi-fascist secret society acquired a frightening degree of influence within Italian political circles -- especially within SISMI. An "inside" group of Italian spooks, jocularly labeled "Super-SISMI," was entirely devoted to the P2 cause.

At the time, a number of published reports fingered Michael Ledeen as a member of P2. Anyone attempting to find out who was running Rocco should cast a long, lingering glance in the direction of Michael Ledeen.

So how do we play this? Blog pundits wondered how much time would pass before rightist apologists used the phrase "common knowledge" to excuse the outing of Valerie Plame. (As in: "Her work for the Agency was common knowledge.") Well, it's already happened, as evidenced by a recent column in National Review Online. Maybe her employer was common knowledge within the spooky circles William F. Buckley has long called home.

The CIA may, in fact, provide one key to this entire matter. The recent revelations about Mark Felt have had many people re-reading those old books about Nixon-era skullduggery, and one of the key theories in the alternative Watergate literature holds that "former" spooks loyal to Richard Helms (and/or mistrustful of Henry Kissinger) engineered the scandal as vengeance against Nixon. One cannot help but wonder if the casualties in the CIA/neocon "war" have planned to repeat that history.

The Bush administration has had to deal with many embarrassing revelations from the less tamed sectors of the intel community. So far, none of those humiliations have inflicted much damage, since much of the narcotized populace remains blissfully unaware of all facts unapproved by the G.O.P. propaganda machine. But the Rove scandal threatens to penetrate the consciousness of even the silliest of this nation's silly-billies.

Unfortunately, Democrats will now have to focus their energies on two new political controversies -- the new Supreme Court pick and the Rove/Plame scandal. Since Bush always governs as though he possesses a 90% approval rating, no savvy person doubts that he will pick the most thuggish Supreme Court nominee imaginable. Do progressives possess the resources to fight that battle while simultaneously publicizing the case against Rove?

If resources prove inadequate to fight on two separate fronts, I would prefer to concentrate all fire on Karl Rove. On the other hand, the Rove scandal may well weaken this administration to a degree sufficient to allow greater success on other fronts.

Who knows? While I am not an optmist by nature, maybe -- just maybe -- we can prevail in both upcoming donnybrooks.