President Bush has now had enough time with his advisors to come up with a response to questions about Karl Rove. Unlike yesterday, where he just ignored reporters who asked him about Rove, today, with Rove seated right behind him, he said:

"I have instructed every member of my staff to fully cooperate in this investigation. I also will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports," Bush told reporters in response to a question. "We're in the midst of an ongoing investigation and I will be more than happy to comment further once the investigation is completed," Bush said.

Thank you, Mr. President, for that illuminating answer.

WorldCom former exec Bernie Ebbers, 63 has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud. (Note: CNBC which first reported the sentence said 30 years, but later articles are saying 25, so I've changed it.)

This is a ridiculous sentence for a non-violent crime. The judge may have well as imposed the 85 years sought by the government - both are an effective life sentence.

I doubt he'll go to a federal prison camp on a 30 year sentence. To put a 63 year old, first offender behind the walls at a medium security prison for an economic crime is cruel. Hopefully, he'll be sent to a medical facility.

What will they do to Ken Lay? Give him life plus cancer?

America, prison nation.

Another executive fiat is on the way....the Washington Post reports that John Bolton will accept a recess appointment.

"The president has made his selection, and the president is asking the Senate to confirm the selection, and if the Senate refuses to do that, then most assuredly [Bush] will make a recess appointment."

Just another indicator of Bush's lack of respect for the legislative branch. Welcome to the Monarchy.

Hearings on re-authorizing the Patriot Act will be held today by two House Committees, the House Judiciary Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. The ACLU says there has been a bait and switch (received by e-mail).

The ACLU called for legislation that would protect freedoms, noting that in the aftermath of 9/11, the House Judiciary Committee had initially produced a bipartisan bill, with unanimous support, which was mindful of civil liberties. However, that bill was switched with a measure containing powers long sought by the Department of Justice - and which became the Patriot Act.

"Congress has a unique opportunity to fix the mistakes they made with the Patriot Act the first time around," said Lisa Graves, ACLU Senior Counsel for Legislative Strategy. "Unfortunately, the proposals we're seeing mimic the same flaws of the initial Patriot Act - they continue to place extraordinary powers in the hands of the executive with very diminished oversight by both Congress and the judiciary. Congress should enact modest changes - like the bipartisan Safe Act, which strikes the right balance in securing the nation and protecting our freedoms."

More available here.

We hear a lot about Karl Rove, but little about his job duties, aside from advancing Bush's agenda and orchestrating Republican election campaigns. The LA Times today provides some illumination:

Rove has duties beyond his official role of working on foreign and domestic policy development. He has the broadest portfolio of any presidential aide in history: He micromanages policy, leads outreach efforts to key GOP constituencies and supervises election strategy down to the precinct level, not only for the president but for congressional candidates as well.

Rove also maintains contacts at leading news organizations and often provides background guidance to top reporters and editors, as he did for Cooper. These contacts are part of Rove's less-discussed role of crafting Bush's image, enforcing the strict Bush code of discipline and jumping hard on perceived opponents of the president.

The Hill reports that House and Senate Democrats today will be introducing the Army Relief Act to increase the size of the Army:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services (SASC) airland subcommittee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), a SASC member, and Reps. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), both members of the House Armed Services committee, are pressing for the passage of the United States Army Relief Act. The legislation seeks to raise the cap of the Army’s end strength, said an aide to Tauscher.

If the army is authorized to recruit more soldiers, where will they come from in no one volunteers? Will it pave the way for a draft?

[Hat tip, National Journal, (subscription.)

Did Missouri execute an innocent man? Larry Griffin was executed in 1995 for a drive-by shooting. Yesterday, a report was issued by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund demonstrating the likelihood that he was factually innocent of the crime. The Circuit Attorney's office has agreed to reopen the investigation.

Death penalty advocates like to point out that despite the growing number of wrongfully convicted prisoners later found innocent through DNA testing, it has never been shown that an innocent person has been put to death. That may change.

The timing could not be more critical as the Senate Judiciary Committee today considers a bill to limit habeas corpus appeals in state death penalty cases.

• Former CIA Agent Larry Johnson, guest posting at TPM Cafe explains again just how Valerie Plame was an undercover agent and the damage from leaking her identity. I say again because I've mentioned his and fellow former Agent Larry Marcinkowski's testimony to the Senate Democractic Policy Committee so many times. (Hearing Transcript here(pdf))

• Armando at Daily Kos on Valerie Plame's covert status. He finds this Knights-Ridder article:

The CIA declined to discuss Plame's intelligence work, but an agency official disputed suggestions that she was a mere analyst whose public exposure would have little consequence. "If she was not undercover, we would have no reason to file a criminal referral," the CIA official said, insisting on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

• Arianna on why Karl Rove should be fired.

• Atrios brings Judith Miller back into the equation.

• David Corn brings Ken Mehlman into the stonewalling mix.

• Digby wonders why Richard Luskin, Karl Rove's lawyer, would criticize Matt Cooper the day before his grand jury testimony.

Back to connecting the dots.

WaPo Reporter Walter Pincus also blogs. Here's what he wrote on July 6, 2005 about his source for the Valerie Plame Leak. Doesn't it sound awfully familiar?

On July 12, 2003, an administration official, who was talking to me confidentially about a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities, veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction.....I didn’t write about that information at that time because I did not believe it true that she had arranged his Niger trip.

I wrote my October story because I did not think the person who spoke to me was committing a criminal act, but only practicing damage control by trying to get me to stop writing about Wilson. Because of that article, The Washington Post and I received subpoenas last summer from Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor looking into the Plame leak. Fitzgerald wanted to find out the identity of my source. (my emphasis)

Today, Karl Rove's lawyer said to Byron York:

The intrepid reporter Murray Waas has an exclusive: Bob Novak has cooperated with Valerie Plame investigators and they may not believe him:

Also of interest to investigators have been a series of telephone contacts between Novak and Rove, and other White House officials, in the days just after press reports first disclosed the existence of a federal criminal investigation as to who leaked Plame's identity. Investigators have been concerned that Novak and his sources might have conceived or co-ordinated a cover story to disguise the nature of their conversations. That concern was a reason-- although only one of many-- that led prosecutors to press for the testimony of Cooper and Miller, sources said.

Lending credence to those suspicions was that a U.S. government official questioned by investigators said Novak specifically asked him whether Plame had some covert status with the CIA. The official told investigators that Novak appeared uncertain whether she was undercover or not. That account, on one hand, might lend credence to the claims by Rove and other Bush administration officials that they did not know Plame was a covert CIA officer. Conversely, however, the fact that Novak asked the question in the first place appeared to indicate that he might have indeed been told Plame was a covert operative, and was seeking confirmation of that fact.

Byron York at NRO interviewed Robert Luskin, lawyer for Karl Rove today. He says Matthew Cooper "burned" Rove.

"By any definition, he burned Karl Rove," Luskin said of Cooper. "If you read what Karl said to him and read how Cooper characterizes it in the article, he really spins it in a pretty ugly fashion to make it seem like people in the White House were affirmatively reaching out to reporters to try to get them to them to report negative information about Plame."

Here's more:

According to Luskin, Cooper originally called Rove — not the other way around — and said he was working on a story on welfare reform. After some conversation about that issue, Luskin said, Cooper changed the subject to the weapons of mass destruction issue, and that was when the two had the brief talk that became the subject of so much legal wrangling. 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."

Fox News' Rita Cosby has jumped ship, to MSNBC where she'll be getting her own nightly show. Good move for MSNBC, Rita is a top notch reporter and interviewer. [Via Huffington Post.]