Whoooooops
"Uhhhh...remember when we said all that stuff about not knowing anything about that treasonous CIA leak, and that the White House had nothing to do with it? Scratch that, what we MEANT to say was that the President's top political advisor, the man known as "Bush's Brain," the prince of darkness himself, Karl Rove, was actually behind the whole thing. Now please immediately forget this ever happened and go about your patriotic duty. This has been a message from the Ministry of Information. Good day."
"The president knows that Karl Rove is not involved, and it's a ridiculous suggestion. I have spoken to Karl Rove, and there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And the President is aware of that." -- Scott McClellan, White House Press Secretary, Sept 2003
Can you imagine if a top figure in the Clinton Administration (like say Hillary) had outed a CIA agent working on Weapons of Mass Destruction, in order to exact political revenge? The press would have a field day! Think this will work in a similar manner, becoming a front-page story for months? Don't bet on it...
[Update: I predict the GOP will conveniently forget their previous outrage over Clinton's parsing of "That depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" in their desperation to try and squirm Rove out of what he's clearly done. I expect they will also try and re-slime Wilson in the middle of all this, in an attempt to make Rove look like he was "in the right" regardless of what happens legally, in order to control public opinion in case they might lose on the facts. Right-wing extremist blogs are already employing revisionist history insofar as attacking Wilson, his character, and his "lies".
The real question is, how did Rove get access to this information before he leaked it? Might this investigation eventually tie into the Bolton fiasco, or Rumsfeld's OSP? Might it even threaten Cheney? That would explain why the special prosecutor seems to be making a big deal of this...hmmmm.]