Scandal update

It's a hell of a day, scandal-wise.

I will let dr. elsewhere speak, if she is of a mind to do so, on the Novak outing of Karl Rove. I'll simply note that Pete Yost's AP story made me smile when I got to the anti-interview with (about?) former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow. Has there ever been a more transparent use of the old "official familiar with the matter" gambit?

Huge news on the MZM front: Mitch Wade's MZM may well be the firm responsible for the misidentification of those Saddam Hussein aluminum tubes. We know that a private contractor spent all of one day looking into the claim and "confirming" the gotta-be-nukes idea. As I recall, before getting that gig (if they did get it), MZM had not amounted to very much; afterward, the contracts just poured in.

See TPM Muckraker here, and especially see emptywheel's amazing piece here. emptywheel suspects that the MZM/aluminum tube connection may be the dire matter that has Representative Hoekstra, normally a Bush supporter, in such a tizzy.

My take: If the MZM connection is real, Hoekstra decided to get out in front of the issue before someone else made it public.

We still don't know precisely who snatched up those Niger forgeries and decided to use them to start a war, but many signs point to the P2 faction within SISMI. The other cause for war was the aluminum tube fiasco -- and the finger of blame may well point to one of the most corrupt individuals in Republican history.