If you want a break from the carnage in London, read today's edition of Dan Froomkin's online column. It's a great compilation of the latest press on Rove. Key excerpts:
Time reporter Matt Cooper is not in jail, after a last-minute intervention from his source, who released him from confidentiality.Newsweek warns of lawyers using word games, which is of course, what lawyers do:
Signs increasingly point toward Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist, as Cooper's source. What's not clear is why Miller's source -- be it Rove or someone else -- has not given her the same explicit release from confidentiality.
Adam Liptak writes in the New York Times: "Mr. Cooper's decision to drop his refusal to testify followed discussions on Wednesday morning among lawyers representing Mr. Cooper and Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser, according to a person who has been officially briefed on the case. Mr. [Special prosecutor Patrick J.] Fitzgerald was also involved in the discussions, the person said.
"In his statement in court, Mr. Cooper did not name Mr. Rove as the source about whom he would now testify, but the person who was briefed on the case said that he was referring to Mr. Rove and that Mr. Cooper's decision came after behind-the-scenes maneuvering by his lawyers and others in the case.
But Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball suggest on Newsweek.com that maybe it was Rove after all -- just not by phone.and then there is this:
"Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, told Newsweek today that Rove 'did not call Cooper' prior to today's court hearing, nor had the two of them 'spoken' about the subject of waiving confidentiality.
"But Luskin would make no other comments, including whether there had been any other form of communications between Cooper and Rove."
And here's NBC's Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC yesterday: "Let's step back for a moment because this story is huge, and I say it has huge political ramifications because of the subject and what originally launched this whole case. This is about the justification that the president used to go to war in Iraq. . . .Huge indeed.
"I think what's most stunning about the case is the involvement of Karl Rove, the president's deputy chief of staff, a senior political advisor . . . his strongest defender in the White House. . . .
"'This case has been on the verge of blowing up for months now and we are closer than ever to finding out just what Fitzgerald wants to do. Many people may be looking at . . . [the] legal issues about jailing reporters -- [but] this is about a potential scandal in the second term of the Bush administration, and just what the prosecutor, Fitzgerald, is up to, no one knows. But it could be huge."
