Turdblossom In The Punchbowl

Karl Rove is spinning like Tanya Harding at the nationals right now, telling everyone who will listen that he wasn’t part of any conspiracy to leak Plame’s identity to the press, that he has a major case of CRS disease (can’t remember shit.) But it just doesn’t hold water.

One thing we do know is that Official A in LIbby’s indictment has been acknowledged to be Rove. Here’s the passage that refers to him:

On or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke to a senior official in the White House (“Official A”) who advised LIBBY of a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson’s wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson’s trip. LIBBY was advised by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson’s wife.

Interesting phrasing, isn’t it? Rove knew that Novak was writing a story “about Wilson’s wife” — not about Cheney’s non-involvement, not about Joe Wilson never submitting a report, but “about Wilson’s wife.”

And here I thought Karl was just trying to warn reporters off Wilson’s allegations and mentioned Wilson’s wife to Cooper as an afterthought. Byron York interviewed Rove’s lawyer Luskin back in July:

“Look at the Cooper e-mail,” Luskin continues. “Karl speaks to him on double super secret background…I don’t think that you can read that e-mail and conclude that what Karl was trying to do was to get Cooper to publish the name of Wilson’s wife.”

According to Luskin, the fact that Rove did not call Cooper; that the original purpose of the call, as Cooper told Rove, was welfare reform; that only after Cooper brought the WMD issue up did Rove discuss Wilson — all are “indications that this was not a calculated effort by the White House to get this story out.”

Yet Karl “Official A” Rove specifically informed Libby that Novak would be writing a story “about Wilson’s wife.” Perhaps they were just idly sharing small tid-bits of their conversations with journalists over the urinals, but it certainly would seem that Karl had an interest in “Wilson’s wife” as opposed to Wilson’s alleged misstatements.

I am not a lawyer so I’m probably missing something vitally important here, but can someone explain to me why this item is included in the obstruction count? From what I gather the obstruction charge rests on the fact that he lied so often and so completely that the Grand Jury concluded that he was actively obstructing the investigation. But it does not appear that he lied about this conversation, or at least it isn’t mentioned in the enumerated lies in the perjury counts. So, what does this conversation with Rove have to do with Libby’s obstruction activities?

Karl, of course, has been telling everyone who will listen that he’s only potentially on the hook for perjury about Matt Cooper and that he just forgot. Luskin has been spinning this as Karl presenting evidence at the eleventh hour that gave Fitzgerald “pause” because Karl never mentioned his conversation with Cooper to his flunky so he must not have remembered it. (I think Jane has the best take on that silly defense.)

Karl has a history of memory lapses about his ratfucking activity going way back. But it’s always been a little bit hard to swallow, since he can recall the most arcane electoral information for any district in the country and can recite passages of books he’s read verbatim. You see, Karl doesn’t just have a good memory, or a prodigious memory — he has a photographic memory.

[His sister Reba] told journalist Miriam Rozen the family used to rely on Rove’s photographic memory for evening entertainment.

“The game was, “see if you can stump Karl,” she said in an interview published in the Dallas Observer. His older brother Eric would read a passafe from abook Karl had read the week before. That challenge was to guess which word his brother had intentionally left out. (Bush’s Brain, p.116)

Once people with photographic memories see something they remember it. If Karl Rove wrote an e-mail, he remembered it.

.