My take is the operative tactic is to obfuscate the issue to where the average citizen has no clue as to what is up, and what is down.

The water muddying is hot and heavy.

How does the timing of the Novak conversations (any dates) tie to Luskins “if Cooper is going to jail to protect someone, it is not Karl Rove” (paraphrased) statement? Did he make that statement KNOWING that Novak was saying that is EXACTLY who Cooper is protecting?

Here are the unsegued (word?) thoughts I am kicking around:

1. Let’s say Luskin did tell the Prosecutor a date near to Rove coming clean. Prosecutor talks to Novak, gets her to come clean on earlier date(s) of conversations. Prosecutor calls Luskin for depo in to lock him in on the dates. Is it too circuitus to think that that Prosecutor might issue the subpeona to Novak based on either a) date when Luskin said they had the conversation, or b) date of one conversation prior to Luskin saying they spoke, but still not “the earliest” conversation. This way, Prosecutor has spoken to Novak; knows the actual date(s); has Luskin on the record (and maybe if b) is correct, gets Luskin to whiffle from his original statement to try to pick up the earlier and cover it too without cueing Luskin to the fact that Prosecutor also knows about even EARLIER conversatios – so Rove isn’t the only one who might roll his disclosures?); goes ahead and takes a depo of Novak that only addresses the time frame that Luskin knows about from the subpeona and Luskin gets access to that and thinks that is what they have to deal with; then Prosecutor pulls Novak in front of GJ and has her testify, not just to what is in her depo but also to the earlier conversations.

So the subpeona could have been the Prosecutor sending Luskin an intentionally false signal that he was buying the dates?

2. Ditto digby, km, me3 et al on the October indictment. And to tie to 1 above, what if the situation in Oct was this. Prosecutor is having the PC. Lawyers know indictments are coming out and they know which of their clients have been demonstrably lieing. But Prosecutor is planning all along to just go for one defendant at this juncture (a cast iron one on cast iron counts) and see if he can use that to sweat the indictee or others who know they are nailed. Luskin makes the call, thinking he needs a last ditch – floats his lame story and — Prosecutor (who has already decided to wait a bit on Rove and see what Libby’s indictment shakes loose) allow Luskin to think that he is taken aback. All the while sitting back and thinking – hmmmm, wonder how deep this hole will be when they finish digging?

3. If Luskin’s story is that he went back and did lots of email digging – does that open up his billing reports for the applicable time periods to production? From both parties? Think they are detailed reports?

Just interesting stuff.

BTW, another interesting article, but on Padilla’s case

http://today.reuters.com/news/…..ADILLA.xml

How odd is that? 4th Circuit agrees to allow the detention based on govt’s representations to court and the significance of charges. Then govt decides to charge Padilla with completely different charges so that they do not have to get into the whole rendition, torture, etc. issue. 4th Circuit says – hey, get your derriere’s back here and brief to us why the facts you are using to charge Padilla, now, after the detention we authorized, are completely unrelated to the evidence you gave us when you asked us to authorize the detention. Govt says – ummmmm, how about you just go back and vacate that order, OK? We don’t really need it now.

Is that gonna fly? It seems the 4th Circuit might be a little peeved at that approach?

An old friend buzzed me on IM so I’ve spent the last hour explaining Treasongate and multiscandals for him. He tried the ole Dems are weak and just as corrupted trick, he wasn’t saying that when I got done with him!

BTW, that Chapman-Rove pic was great. Yowza.