"Knowingly"

Apparently, for once, a more left leaning pundit is on a Republican like my dog is on "floor-pie".

In a huge admission to Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, Luskin confessed that, well, yes, Rove did talk to Cooper. It is a huge admission in a case where Rove and Luskin have never, before Friday, felt compelled to say a word about Rove's contact with Cooper or anyone else involved in the case.

Luskin then launched what sounds like an I-did-not-inhale defense. He told Newsweek that his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Knowingly. That is the most important word Luskin said in what has now become his public version of the Rove defense.

Not coincidentally, the word 'knowing' is the most important word in the controlling statute ( U.S. Code: Title 50: Section 421). To violate the law, Rove had to tell Cooper about a covert agent "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."

So, Rove's defense now hangs on one word—he "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Does that mean Rove simply didn't know Valerie Plame was a covert agent? Or does it just mean that Rove did not know that the CIA was "taking affirmative measures" to hide her identity?

In Luskin's next damage control session with the press, let's see if any reporter can get him to drop the word 'knowingly' from the never-disclosed-classified-information bit.

This really "is", Karl Rove's "what your definition of "is" is" moment. And we will have such moments as a while. Although the NY Times continues to be fucking pathetic on this story, which is not about Joe Wilson; it is about Bush's Brain (such as it is), at best, not giving a shit, what the repercussions were of bringing out the brass knuckles on a political opponent. The repercussions being either outing an operative or weakening national security.

For that alone, even if a technical crime wasn't committed, the worst kind of scumbag politics was played against American interests notice Bush's prior statement on this nearly a year and a half ago:

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.

"I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job.

"I want to know the truth," the president continued. "Leaks of classified information are bad things."

Parsing in bold. So, how long has George Bush known it was Karl Rove that did the leaking, especially since he was doing this hypertechnical stuff?