by TChris

"Republicans close to the White House" tell the Washington Post that President Bush is "poised" to announce tomorrow the candidate who will replace Harriet Miers as the candidate to replace Justice O'Connor. Quick action, calculated to distract the news media from the Plame investigation, may also be calculated to consolidate the Republican Party behind a nominee who is trusted to advance a conservative agenda.

The Post article and this NY Times article short list the usual suspects. Both place Samuel Alito Jr. at the top of the list. From Wikipedia:

His ideological likeness to United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has earned him the nickname "Scalito."

If Bush does announce a name tomorrow, will it supplant the Plame story, or (with the encouragement of bloggers) will the media be motivated to cover both stories with equal vigor?

Josh Marshall finds an archived version of today's Washington Post article on Lexis-Nexis that is different than the first edition of the article. The difference is this sentence which did not make it into the final version:

On July 12, the day Cheney and Libby flew together from Norfolk, the vice president instructed his aide to alert reporters of an attack launched that morning on Wilson's credibility by Fleischer, according to a well-placed source.

Why is this critical? Jane at Firedoglake thinks it means that Ari Fleischer was Robert Novak's source. Anonymous Liberal analyzes another part of the article and concludes that Ari Fleischer was Walter Pincus's source. While I think it's possible that Fleischer was Novak's source, providing information he learned from Libby at lunch on July 7, I don't think he was Pincus's source. In any event, I think the removed sentence from the WaPo article is significant for another reason. It seems to be another link in the chain of available information that says the attack on Wilson could have been ordered by Cheney -- and that may be the reason it was deleted from the final version of the article.

As Buzzflash writes,

Holy Batman! The Mainstream Press is Even Sounding Grim on the Busheviks, "Dark days: Singed by the special prosecutor and rattled by the Harriet Miers mess, Team Bush is in turmoil."

There is a huge sea change going on in the MSM. Check out Newsweek's Flying Blind and The TimeonLine article Bush Got Whacked. The Washington Post features a similar article and notes that Bush's approval ratings are at the lowest of his presidency.

Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek (as I speculated most recently yesterday) that Novak's source cooperated with Fitzgerald and got a pass.

Thanks to Ian of The Political Teen for putting up the video of this morning's Reliable Sources blogger segment featuring Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, Reporter bloggerRoger Simon (not this Roger Simon) and me. The topics were the war in Iraq, Harriet Miers and Fitzgerald's indictment of Scooter Libby.

You can watch it here.

Country Joe at Woodstock

You don't have to be in San Francisco tomorrow to see and hear the bands. All you need is your computer. The Chet Helms Tribal Stomp is being live-cast beginning at 9 am PT and rebroadcast at 7pm PT. Here's the link to watch the concert.

If you are in the bay area, the concert is free at Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park.

You can listen along now to Country Joe's "I feel like I'm fixing to die rag" here. Lyrics are here.

Here are the bands. Chet Helms would be so proud.

Digby nails it once again.

• Sept. 26, 2003...Plame Leak is referred to the Department of Justice for Investigation

• October 7, 2003...Rove to Bush: "Reporters do a very good job of protecting leakers, Mr President. Don't worry."

• October 8, 2003...Bush to America: I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is, partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers."

by Last Night in Little Rock

Tomorrow's NY Times, online now, has two intriguing articles about VP Cheney: In Indictment's Wake, a Focus on Cheney's Powerful Role and Indictment Gives Glimpse Into a Secretive Operation. The first is a political story, but the second is more interesting because, reading between the lines, it focuses on a potential conspiracy in the White House.

by TChris

Caving to the petition of local religious leaders and to concerns voiced by a Civic Center sponsor, the Jamestown, North Dakota mayor and city council voted to cancel a male revue -- the "Thunder from Down Under" -- that had been booked to perform at the city's Civic Center. The sponsor complained that the male strippers were engaged in pornography, while a minister called the show "the absolute wrong thing for Jamestown to bring in."

What would be the absolute right thing for Jamestown to bring in?

One council member who opposed the cancellation noted the Ministerial Association did not oppose a recent Ultimate Fighting show featuring what the councilman called "guys trying to beat each other's brains out."

Karl Rove's latest version of his role in the Plame investigation is contained in this Los Angeles Times article by Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger.

Lawyers familiar with the case believe these e-mails were one element of a broad, eleventh-hour review of evidence — coupled with negotiations by Rove's lawyers — that led Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald not to include him in Friday's action.

"In the normal back-and-forth between prosecutor and defense attorneys, some issues were raised that made the prosecutor step back and have pause for thought as far as his future activities," a source close to Rove said. "He thought, 'This is enough for me to hold off making decisions.'"

The article continues to describe the last minute interview with Adam Levine as an indicator that Fitzgerald may now believe Rove just had a faulty memory in failing to tell investigators or the grand jury intially about his July 11 conversation with Time Reporter Matt Cooper. My post about the Levine interview is here.

These reporters have reported on the case several times, using sources referred to as "Rove associates" or people familiar with Rove's perspective.

by TChris

The NY Times describes how, “in its clear, cold language, [the Libby indictment] lifts a veil on how aggressively Mr. Cheney's office drove the rationale against Saddam Hussein and then fought to discredit the Iraq war's critics.” The indictment offers a peek, but the full scope of Cheney’s involvement in Libby’s indicted wrongdoing remains an unanswered question.

It is Libby’s right to be presumed innocent until proof beyond a reasonable doubt overcomes that presumption in the minds of twelve jurors. Would Libby exercise his right to a trial, knowing that Fitzgerald might call Cheney as a witness to events described in the indictment (pdf)? And knowing that Karl Rove, Official A, will testify against him? Does Libby want to subject Cheney and Rove to cross-examination?

I'm off to meet with clients I should have met with Thursday and Friday while I was covering RoveGate. Here's a place to keep the conversation flowing.

Rove may be "Official Source A," but we still don't know who told Novak about Valerie Plame. One likely explanation is that Novak's source is one of those who got a deal or received immunity from prosecution from Fitzgerald in exchange for cooperation in the investigation.

There are potentially several people in this category. I'll speculate as to a few: Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley, David Wurmser, John Hannah, Fred Fleitz and Ari Fleischer. The Seattle Times reported today that Wurmser and Hannah testified late in the process. It has previously been reported that both cooperated.