• Dale has laid out quite compelling reasons why neither the Sec 421 law, nor the Espionage Act likely even apply to this disclosure, and are much less likely to actually be invoked in court.



• Dale also noted that a significant portion of the Mainstream Media—which is currently calling for Karl Rove to be cuffed and frog-marched—is simultaneously arguing that there is "considerable doubt that a crime has been committed".

On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote another column in which he described calling two officials who were his sources for the earlier column. The first source, whose identity has not been revealed, provided the outlines of the story and was described by Mr. Novak as "no partisan gunslinger." Mr. Novak wrote that when he called a second official for confirmation, the source said, "Oh, you know about it."

That second source was Mr. Rove, the person briefed on the matter said.

The alleged crime at the heart of a controversy that has consumed official Washington — the "outing" of a CIA officer — may not have been a crime at all under federal law, little-noticed details in a book by the agent's husband suggest.

In The Politics of Truth, former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes that he and his future wife both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997. Neither spouse, a reading of the book indicates, was again stationed overseas. They appear to have remained in Washington, D.C., where they married and became parents of twins.

1. ...whether Rove acted unethically by talking about Valerie Plame at all, and..



2. ...who did, in fact, first mention Plame to a journalist.

While it is fair to characterize the over-the-top hysteria from some quarters on the left regarding Rove as, well, over-the-top hysteria, some perspective should be offered. If it turns out that someone in this administration really did 'out' an agent, I want their head on a platter. That it might have been done for petty political revenge just makes it even more odious. But, I am willing to wait on the results of the Fitzgerald investigation ...

... What if this had happened during the Clinton administration? What if it was Paul Begala or someone like him who was accused of outing a CIA agent? What would the right be doing?

If your answer is anything other than what the left is doing, only louder, you are fooling yourselves. Rush Limbaugh would have talked about nothing else for 3 years, and unlike 2004, this WOULD have been the chief issue of the election. G. Gordon Liddy would be having fund-raisers to erect a hangman's scaffold on the White House lawn. The legal 'analysts' at NRO would be claiming that the statutes currently being applied to the case are inadequate, and that we should be looking at charges of treason and the application of the Federal death penalty.
[...]
And the bloggers on the hard right would be with them every step of the way, and would stop printing 'I Love Gitmo' stickers long enough to print some 'Shoot Leakers On Sight' paraphernalia.