The Cocktail That Saved Karl Rove's Ass

Arianna Huffington, at her own HuffPo, has an interesting explanation for how Karl dodged his bullet. She points to Viveca Novak, formerly a "reporter" at Time who didn't reported on her own involvement in the case (or even tell her bosses... kinda like Bob Woodward) and who eventually "quietly took a buyout". As Arianna puts it: "She was his human stay-out-of-jail-free card".

The sad truth is that Novak's perfidy did more to stymie the indictment of Karl Rove than anything else, and while it would be nice to believe that Rove may yet face criminal justice for his actions, it's unlikely that he will.

But even if he's never charged, Rove still confirmed the identity of a covert CIA operative to Bob Novak who then published it. He leaked it to Matt Cooper who, unlike either Novak, tried to expose what the Bush White House was up to. Rove then lied about being the source of the leak for a year, in the process hanging Scott McClellan out to dry by letting him tell the press and the American public that Rove had assured him he had no involvement with the leak.

And, even if you believe Rove's improbable tale that his conversation with Cooper had somehow slipped his mind, he was reminded of it by Viveca Novak via Luskin by the spring of 2004 and could easily have ended Cooper and Time's prolonged fight to protect him as a source and told the president that he had been one of the leakers (saving his boss from the embarrassment of vowing to fire anyone involved, then pulling back on that pledge once it became clear that that would mean cutting loose his beloved Turd Blossom).

But Rove kept his mouth shut, preferring swift boating and rousing the country to the threat of gay marriage. For all these reasons, Rove should not be allowed to remain a part of the administration and Bush should not be allowed to keep him on without shame.