Rove’s best case

Robert Luskin, the lawyer for White House chief political adviser Karl Rove, has given an interview to Byron York in National Review Online that fleshes out the theory that Rove was not exposing CIA operative Valerie Plame but, rather, was seeking to warn Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper off a bad story. This is worth reading, not least because it might actually be true.

The whole Plame matter could turn out to be one of those celebrated scandals that falls apart upon close inspection – although President Bush still has to deal with the fact that he said he would fire whoever leaked Plame’s name to the media. Rove may not have broken any law, but it appears that he did leak her identity, if not her actual name.

How complicated is this? Check out Boston Globe columnist Robert Kuttner’s piece today, headlined “Second Thoughts on Leak Case.” For that matter, I’m prepared to take back at least some of this, depending on how events play out.