Second thoughts on leak case

LAST WEEK in this space, I implied that the special counsel in the Valerie Plame leak case, Patrick Fitzgerald, might be protecting the Bush administration. It made no sense, I argued, that New York Times reporter Judith Miller was going to jail for protecting a source, while columnist Robert Novak, who first published the leak, either had revealed his source to Fitzgerald and thus solved the case or should be under similar threats but wasn't. Ergo: Fitzgerald was going after the press rather than the White House.

Wrong on all counts. In 20 years of writing columns for the Globe, I've had to print minor corrections, but this is the first story I really booted. I owe readers and prosecutor Fitzgerald an explanation and an apology.

Here's what we've learned:

First, Fitzgerald is playing it straight. Novak has apparently testified -- otherwise he'd be in jail with Miller. Fitzgerald has extensively investigated Bush officials. Karl Rove has likely testified, too.

SNIP

The response of Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, to recent reports in Newsweek, which somehow got hold of reporter Cooper's subpoenaed memos fingering Rove, is highly instructive. Rove had previously insisted that he had never disclosed Valerie Plame's ''name." Now his lawyer admits that Rove, in trying to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson, told Cooper that Wilson's ''wife" was a CIA agent but didn't mention her by name.

So Rove is playing word games. What he said was literally true -- but a lie, since a reporter given this tip could easily identify Wilson's wife. Whether or not he used her name, Rove was deliberately outing Plame. If he played the same word games before the grand jury, he's in trouble.

The White House spinners also contend that Plame was not really a clandestine and protected CIA agent because she worked at CIA headquarters. This is also nonsense. Plame, a specialist on weapons of mass destruction, was under cover when she undertook sensitive missions. She was not identified as CIA. Blowing her cover harmed her career and put her at risk.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect