This picture, from Crooks & Liars, will probably make a fine book cover when the story is written about the Plame Game scandal. The button on Rove’s lapel reads, “I’m a source, not a target.” Seriously.
As the caption from the original explains, the photograph was taken in June 2003 at a party marking the 40th anniversary of Novak’s newspaper column, just a few weeks before Novak ran a column outing an undercover CIA agent with information he apparently received from Rove.
Looking back, the phrase is only half right. Rove was a source (for Novak), but he’s also a target (of a criminal investigation). That’s surely not what was meant at the time, but it’s funny how things work out sometimes, isn’t it?