Novak told Rove who told Cooper. So who told Novak?

I think before it's all over, this may very well go through Judith Miller and back to John Bolton, which will explain the White House's refusal to turn over the requested documents on Bolton to the Senate.

It's all related, isn't it? The Downing Street Minutes. The outing of Valerie Plame. The complicity of Judith Miller in shilling for the war. John Bolton's nomination to the U.N. Too bad they killed off Danny Casolaro the LAST time a scandal involving a Bush surfaced.

NYT lead story:

Mr. Novak began his conversation with Mr. Rove by asking about the promotion of Frances Fragos Townsend, who had been a close aide to Janet Reno when she was attorney general, to a senior counterterrorism job at the White House, the person who was briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Novak then turned to the subject of Ms. Wilson, identifying her by name, the person said. In an Op-Ed article for The New York Times on July 6, 2003, Mr. Wilson suggested that he had been sent to Niger because of Mr. Cheney's interest in the matter. But Mr. Novak told Mr. Rove he knew that Mr. Wilson had been sent at the urging of Ms. Wilson, the person who had been briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Rove's allies have said that he did not call reporters with information about the case, rebutting the theory that the White House was actively seeking to intimidate or punish Mr. Wilson by harming his wife's career. They have also emphasized that Mr. Rove appeared not to know anything about Ms. Wilson other than that she worked at the C.I.A. and was married to Mr. Wilson.

This is not the first time Mr. Rove has been linked to a leak reported by Mr. Novak. In 1992, Mr. Rove was fired from the Texas campaign to re-elect the first President Bush because of suspicions that he had leaked information to Mr. Novak about shortfalls in the Texas organization's fund-raising. Both Mr. Rove and Mr. Novak have denied that Mr. Rove had been the source.

John Aravosis explains why it's important:

1. A senior Bush administration official with access to the most classified information confirms to a journalist who a CIA agent is. Is he nuts? Again, anyone who's worked with the CIA and their agents (and I have) knows how careful they are - you do NOT confirm who works there, and EVERYONE in town KNOWS that. Why in God's name would Rove do this? It's inexcusable. And he confirmed it to a journalist, no less.

2. It confirms that Scottie McClellan REALLY misled the media when he said that it was "ridiculous" to suggest that Rove had anything to do with the Plame leak. In fact, Rove not only told TIME about Plame, he also confirmed the story for Novak. So, again, why did the White House mislead the media and the American public for two years by denying Rove's involvement?

3. Three days after he confirms the story for Novak, Rove tells TIME magazine about Plame. Rove can try to claim that it was Novak who brought Plame's status as CIA up in the conversation first (which still doesn't excuse Rove confirming it, good God), but Rove can't explain why HE decided to be the guy to offer Plame's CIA status on a silver platter to TIME magazine. That's a pattern of disclosure, rather than a one-time slip-up.

4. So now we have Rove leaking to Novak AND Matt Cooper, and Bush still hasn't fired him,, no one has revoked his security clearance, and in fact Rove was walking side by side with Bush today. Could we have a bigger threat to our national security that a walking sieve attached at the hip of our president?

The Bush Acolytes will claim that if Novak told Rove, it gets Rove off the hook, which might fly if a) the Administration (and Rove) had been honest about it from the beginning, and b) if Rove hadn't then turned right around and told Matt Cooper. None of the possibility that Novak told Rove, instead of the other way around, changes the fact that a man this high up in the Administration felt it perfectly appropriate to chatter on and on to whoever would listen about a CIA NOC -- not because it would help reinforce national security, but simply to punish what he saw as a political enemy and score cheap political points.

Is this the kind of man that people who love to say they're more moral than Democrats want to defend? Oh yeah, I forgot. The only thing that makes you moral is not having sex (other than in secret, with a whip, handcuffs, and a $50 hooker).