Interesting development

Hmmmm....

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, testified Friday before a federal grand jury trying to determine who leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer.

Rove spent more than two hours testifying before the panel, according to an administration official who spoke only on condition of anonymity because such proceedings are secret.

Before testifying, Rove was interviewed at least once by investigators probing the leak. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell also have been interviewed, though none has appeared before the grand jury.

So, let's just think about this. The senior political adviser to the President, and a key person in the campaign, can be assumed to have some knowledge, though we don't know what, about the Federal crime of "outing" a covert CIA non-proliferation operative. Sure, maybe he's saying "I know nuh-zink! Nuh-ZINK!", but doesn't it suggest that the leak came from the White House, and not, say, merely a disgruntled CIA employee? Why bother nice Mr. Rove if the prosecutor thought the leak was somewhere else?

Sadly, it also suggests that the October Surprise won't be seeing Karl frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. Sorry, Mr. Wilson.

(You gotta think this would have been a huge scandal during the Clinton years. For this administration, business as usual.)