On July 2, 2005 — in an article titled Bush’s Right-Hand Man Commits Treason: America Says ‘So What?'” — Unspun™ reminded folk that in January 2004 we said Karl Rove was involved in the CIA leak targeting Joseph Wilson’s wife to punish Wilson for crossing the White House. On July 6, I pondered the question, Who Owns the Press? because mainstream “news” organizations were not only not reporting the Rove connection, they weren’t even reporting the fact that Newsweek and various foreign newspapers were reporting it. As I said then, it would have seemed that that would at least be more newsworthy than the usual stories about McDonald’s seeking designer uniforms, or a Russian astrologer suing NASA for screwing up the universe.

One of our readers suggested that the reason there was no press on it was simply explained by the fact that the story was bogus.

Well, maybe the story is bogus.

However, finally, 10 days after the story first appeared on Unspun™, CNN notes:

In 2003, McClellan said it was “totally ridiculous” to suggest that Rove played any role in the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity. He also said Bush has insisted that his staffers cooperate with the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and that anyone responsible would be fired.

“You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved, and now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson’s wife,” one reporter said. “So don’t you owe the American public a fuller explanation?”

“There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it,” McClellan replied. — White House clams up on CIA leak (July 12, 2005) CNN.

And CBS also finally printed something yesterday:

For two years, the White House has insisted that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a CIA officer’s identity. And President Bush said the leaker would be fired.

But Mr. Bush’s spokesman wouldn’t repeat any of those assertions Monday in the face of Rove’s own lawyer saying his client spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame’s role at the CIA before she was identified in a newspaper column after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote an article criticizing the Bush administration’s Iraq policies.

Rove described the woman to a reporter as someone who “apparently works” at the CIA, according to an e-mail obtained by Newsweek magazine. — White House: No Comment on Rove (July 11, 2005) CBS News (emphasis added).

The big question now is: Will all those people who agreed that it was treasonous, but insisted “liberals” who said that Rove and the White House were involved were just were “spreading lies” because we’re “hateful” finally wake up and realize that this President not only would, but did sell American lives for political and financial gain? In the midst of preparing to sell our children’s lives for an unjustified war, they sold out a CIA agent to punish her husband for crossing them.

Still, I’ve no doubt myself that it remains possible in the minds of some people the story is bogus. After all, the Administration continues to stand behind Rove — and it doesn’t matter what he says or does. Furthermore, in explaining “what really happened” regarding the outing of a CIA agent, Rove has come up with his own version of “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is”:

Rove’s words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. “I didn’t know her name. I didn’t leak her name,” Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did…. — Michael Isikoff, Matt Cooper’s Source (July 18, 2005 issue) Newsweek (last visited July 12, 2005).

In other words,

I just told some people that there was a woman, some woman, who worked at the CIA. I didn’t even know who she was. I just figured there must be a woman working at the CIA. I mean, women do work there, right? From there, they somehow managed to guess that her name was Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, was a guy at whom I was pissed off. So if telling reporters that some woman whose name I didn’t even know worked at the CIA counts as treason — if mentioning that there was a female working at the CIA makes me the source of the leak — well, then, maybe I’m the source of the leak.

Yes, maybe the story of Karl Rove committing treason is bogus.

And maybe pigs will fly out of my butt as I walk in the door to my office later this morning.