I find it helpful to analyze this type of problem by sorting the available information into two categories: What we know and what we don’t know.

We Know:

Rove lied to the FBI in October, 2003, when he told them that the first time he heard about Valerie Plame was after Robert Novak’s article appeared on 7/14/2003. In fact, Rove was one of Novak’s two sources for the story and they spoke on 7/8/2003. Libby was Novak’s other source during a phone conversation two days later. Rove (and Libby again) were Matt Cooper’s sources upon which he relied in writing his article for Time. In his account of his grand jury testimony, Cooper said he testified that he called Rove on July 11th to interview him about Wilson’s story in the New York Times. After insisting that Cooper not reveal his name, Rove identified Valerie Plame as Wilson’s wife who worked at the CIA on WMDs. Keeping in mind that Rove and Libby also were working on a statement in which George Tenet was going to fall on his sword for the infamous sixteen words in Bush’s SOTU address, it’s reasonably apparent that both men were engaged in a major effort to protect Bush by getting Tenet and the CIA to accept responsibility for not flagging and removing those words from Bush’s speech and they also wanted to retaliate against Wilson for blowing the whistle on the lie in the SOTU address. Libby and Cheney had known about Plame’s covert status since at least June 10th, when Marc Grossman at the State Department faxed him classified information about her job at the CIA. As we’ve learned from a recent Fitzgerald filing in Libby’s case, a CIA official spelled out her status after Novak’s article outed Plame. I can’t think of any reason why Libby and Rove would not have been sharing information about Plame and coordinating their effort to start a rumor and fan it into a firestorm. That Rove’s email to Hadley, purporting to memorialize his conversation with Cooper, did not mention Plame confirms that Rove knew that she was a covert operative because, if he was ignorant of her covert status, he would not have had a reason not to mention her. Rove perjured himself at the grand jury when he claimed that he forgot about speaking to Cooper and he obviously perjured himself if he denied knowing about Plame and her covert status before Novak’s article was published. Fitzgerald’s case against Rove for lying to the FBI and committing perjury at the grand jury is rock solid.

What we don’t know:

We don’t know the identities of Leopold’s sources, and we don’t know what, if anything they told him.

Nevertheless, we have no reason to believe that Fitzgerald has decided against indicting Rove. Fitzgerald is patient and not in any particular hurry, so he can afford to let Luskin and Rove go into their hurry-up defense one more time. He’ll check out what they have to offer, let Rove sweat, and get back to them when it bests suits his purpose. Leopold’s story could have been 100% accurate when he published it, but the timetable could have been messed up, if Luskin contacted Fitzgerald over the weekend and proposed more discussions. We’ve seen Rove cough up something new at the last minute and so has Fitzgerald, obviously. Why wouldn’t he assume that he’s likely to see that ploy again and again until Rove has nothing more to offer? Since Fitzgerald is smart and experienced, as well as patient, why wouldn’t he decide to play along with their game until he wrings every useful nugget of information out of Rove?

If his case against Rove is as formidable as I believe it is, Fitzgerald has most of the power in this situation. Rove’s bargaining power depends on what he knows and what he’s willing to disclose. Given the secretive grand jury process, he can only guess at what Fitzgerald knows and doesn’t know. Their primitive mating ritual in search of a mutually acceptable plea agreement likely will take awhile. Then again, I think that they’ve been at it awhile, so maybe we will hear something later this week.

Bottom Line: Since I believe that Rove and Fitzgerald are involved in ongoing plea negotiations that probably get a bit stormy at times, given the gamesmanship that likely is going on and the stakes involved, we need to relax, breathe, and become masters of zen and the art of Plamegate maintenance.

Leopold probably got it right, until a phone call from Luskin to Fitzgerald altered the game plan. I don’t believe that sufficient evidence exists to accuse Leopold of concocting his story and I think that it’s a waste of time to go down that road.

Keep your eyes on the action in the ring and remember: relax. Fitzgerald is in control, just as a spider is to the buzzing fly attempting to escape from its sticky web.

2. Larry Johnson confirmed to Jeralyn that he was the one that wrote the commnet in DU endorsing Leopold’s report and that he heard samething from Wilson. (Active guy, that Wilson).

3. Wayne Madsen (WMR) reports that he staked out at the court house on Fri and he saw a procession of SUV’s that came to the court.
He thought that was AG Gonzo, taking a brief from the court (prosecutor or judge, not clear) that Rove was going to be indicted.
This report by itself didn’t make sense, but Madsen says same thing happened with Libby.
On a Fri in Oct, Gonzo went to courthouse, got the brief on Libby, the following wednesday Libby was indicted, on that Fri Fitz held the press conf.

4. Now I have settled in with my own Conventional Wisdom. Real indictment (vs Leopold’s indictment) comes this Wed, Fitz stays in DC on Thurs to prepare for presser, Fitz sees the judge on Fri AM to brief on the indictment, calls the presser with a couple of hrs notice, announce the indictment and do some Q&A with press, and then goes home, watching himself on CNN at DC Reagan airport along the way.

I used to, but he never posts at needlenose any more.

You don’t see imagies of Timothy McVeigh when Bushco talks about terrorists or bombs. You see Arabs and Persians holding up signs and guns. Moreover, why is it NOW all of the sudden a big deal that our Southern border be protected? Um, wasn’t Dumbya a two-term Governor of Texas? The issue is just now coming to the forefront during his fifth year in office? Again, we see brown people sneaking into the U.S. and threatening “our” way of life.

My maternal great-grandfather came over to the United States from Ireland penniless with only a revolver in his pocket. I don’t see a huge difference between him and the Central Americans who sacrifice life and limb to make a life in the greatest country to ever grace the face of the Earth.

Josh Marshall — “Just as the orange terror alerts in NYC and Washington amazingly disappeared after November 2004. The National Guard is being called in to deal with a political emergency.”

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.c…..old_s.html