Matt Drudge is kvetching about the slowness of the left-blogosphere in reacting to the announcement that Karl Rove will not be charged with any crimes in the Plame investigation, but regular readers of Antiwar.com will not be surprised by this turn of events — because we reacted to it last summer. See here, here, and here. As I wrote nearly a full year ago:
“What if Karl Rove isn’t guilty of knowingly leaking Valerie Plame‘s name as a covert CIA agent involved in nuclear proliferation issues? What if Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, is correct when he says that he’s been assured by prosecutors that his client is not a target of the ongoing investigation into Plame-gate? I’m going to swim against the tide, here, and against the expectations of my readers, by suggesting that this investigation isn’t about Rove – and, furthermore, that Rove is a victim, in an important sense, someone who was used and abused by the real culprits. And who are these mysterious culprits? We’ll get to that in a moment …”
And, a few days later:
“It’s not about Rove, Bob Novak, Judith Miller, or any of the other bit players caught up in this maelstrom. It’s about a small group of strategically placed players in the national security bureaucracy who functioned as a two-way transmission belt of treason: feeding the White House, Congress, and the American public a steady diet of lies in the guise of “intelligence,” and, in the other direction, feeding vital U.S. secrets to its foreign sponsors and allies …”
Patrick J. Fitzgerald isn’t done, though: his investigation points in the direction of the Office of the Vice President, and, while I’m not making any predictions, several Cheney aides are no doubt preparing for the worst. Antiwar.com was on to Scooter way before anyone else — and there are others in that crowd who would do well to consult their lawyers. Stay tuned ….