The AP is reporting that White House press secretary Scott McClellan has emphatically denied that Karl Rove is one of the Novak Two.
“He wasn’t involved,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of Rove. “The president knows he wasn’t involved…. It’s simply not true.”
A couple of thoughts/questions in reaction. One, that’s a pretty strong denial. McClellan would be taking an enormous risk if he checked with Rove, put together some facts, and boldly lied to the AP.
Two, what does “the president knows he wasn’t involved” mean? Just yesterday, a White House official said Bush “has no plans to ask his staff members whether they played a role” in the leaks. Maybe he made an exception in Rove’s case?
Three, if McClellan knows with some certainty that Rove “wasn’t involved,” does he now have some idea as to who was involved?
Four, Rove’s involvement was initially suggested by Joseph Wilson directly. Last month, Wilson said at a Dem forum in Seattle, “At the end of the day, it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs,” Wilson said. “And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words.”
Wilson may not have measured those words quite carefully enough. He began backing away from the specifics of the Rove accusation in an interview last week with Josh Marshall. Wilson was in almost-full retreat this morning on Good Morning America, saying that when he implicated Rove, “I think I was probably carried away by the spirit of the moment. I don’t have any knowledge that Karl Rove himself was either the leaker or the authorizer of the leak. But I have great confidence that, at a minimum, he condoned it and certainly did nothing to shut it down.”
With this point in mind, Wilson’s credibility may suffer a bit, but that doesn’t undermine the seriousness of the controversy. The only point Wilson raised directly was whether Rove called Novak. The White House still appears to have illegally leaked classified information, whether Wilson was wrong about Rove or not.