"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our [intelligence] sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors." Former President George Herbert Walker Bush, 1999.

If you've been following the latest developments in the Valerie Plame case this holiday weekend, you might get the feeling that the tide is truly turning against the White House - specifically with news that Time magazine's recent document dump for the special prosecutor may implicate White House advisor Karl Rove in outing Plame as a CIA operative, presumably to punish her husband for telling the truth about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

My gut tells me not to get too excited.

I don't want to give Mr. Rove more credit than he deserves by saying he is too smart for that; he may be a genius of dirty politics, but that's about it. Let's just say I bet he's got some doozy of a loophole, as Lawrence O'Donnell suggests today in his latest revelation on the case (cleverly calling it a possible "I did not inhale" defense).

But thanks to prospect.org, here's what we do know:

Rove insisted [to FBI investigators] he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak's column. He also told the FBI, the same sources said, that circulating the information was a legitimate means to counter what he claimed was politically motivated criticism of the Bush administration by Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson...

Rove and other White House officials described to the FBI what sources characterized as an aggressive campaign to discredit Wilson through the leaking and disseminating of derogatory information regarding him and his wife to the press, utilizing proxies such as conservative interest groups and the Republican National Committee to achieve those ends, and distributing talking points to allies of the administration on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

Man. Notice how they couldn't use that massive Capital Hill energy to say that Wilson was wrong, because he wasn't. So they had to attack him personally.

Man.

Hunter at Daily Kos thankfully puts it all in context (and you really, really should read the whole thing):

We know from Senate investigations that John Bolton, to give one specific example of an administration official, has a special obsession with the punishment of anyone -- agent, analyst, or foreign official -- who contradicted his "preferred" pre-Iraq War intelligence analysis. What we learn from the Plame case is that that wasn't unusual behavior. White House officials mobilized en masse to extract a particularly vicious punishment via the Plame outing. En masse. Whether it proves a felony or not, it is remarkable to think that the highest levels of government would take it so intimately upon themselves to destroy a single critic -- and that they would en masse think nothing of using leaked classified information as the centerpiece of a political hit.

At this point, nothing that happens in the Plame case will shock me. We already know the shocking part -- the level of attacks deemed acceptable and justifiable by Bush and his closest advisors.

This information has been known since 2003. At any point, Bush could have dismissed the culprits. Considering how many of them were involved, he'd have his work cut out for him in the restaffing department, but nonetheless it is transparently obvious what behaviors George W. Bush finds acceptable. What movements, among his staff, he rewards...

Our country is better than these men. Felony or no, I am ashamed of them. And that shame represents a deeper patriotism than a hundred tattered flags waving from car antennae.

Happy Fourth of July.

B.

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