Rove's Friends Know Better Than To Believe Him

It looks like even Karl Rove's friends don't trust him anymore. The Wall Street Journal reports:

After a week of seemingly contradictory reports, one fact appears to have solidified: Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of President Bush's election victories, was a key confidential source used by Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper in his July 2003 article about a Central Intelligence Agency operative.

It looks like Rove's survival will come down to legal technicalities. A major part of Rove's defense is that he didn't out Valerie Plame by name, although he did speak of Joseph Wilson's wife. There remain questions as to what Rove knew at the time to determine whether he really violated the law. The content of Rove's previous grand jury testimony is also important in determining whether he might be guilty of perjury.

There are still questions as to whether Rove is really the main target in the investigation and whether there is sufficient evidence for a conviction. Whether or not Rove is charged with a crime, Rove's friends at the WSJ realize that these questions do not protect the White House from embarrassment:

That said, the disclosure that Mr. Bush's top political strategist discussed the CIA employment of Mr. Wilson's wife amounts to a political embarrassment for Mr. Rove and the White House. A presidential spokesman had previously given what appeared to be an unequivocal public assurance that Mr. Rove hadn't been involved in the disclosure of Ms. Plame as a CIA operative. Discovery that earlier denials may have been carefully parsed would represent another blow to the administration's credibility, compounding damage from the underlying issue that initially brought Mr. Wilson into the spotlight.

In addition this could keep open the question of Bush's lying to justify his invasion of Iraq, and raise questions of whether George Bush was aware of Rove's role in the Plame case.