Seems hope springs eternal for those on the left suffering from RDS that Karl Rove will finally be shackled and led away.

“White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials‚Äîincluding deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett-may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby.

Both Rove and Bartlett have already received trial subpoenas from Libby’s defense lawyers, according to lawyers close to the case who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters. While that is no guarantee they will be called, the odds increased this week after Libby’s lawyer, Ted Wells, laid out a defense resting on the idea that his client, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, had been made a “scapegoat” to protect Rove. Cheney is expected to provide the most crucial testimony to back up Wells’s assertion, one of the lawyers close to the case said. The vice president personally penned an October 2003 note in which he wrote, “Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the other.” The note, read aloud in court by Wells, implied that Libby was the one being sacrificed in an effort to clear Rove of any role in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq war critic Joe Wilson. “Wow, for all the talk about this being a White House that prides itself on loyalty and discipline, you’re not seeing much of it,” the lawyer said.

Libby is charged with lying about when and¬† from whom he learned about Plame during the spring and early summer of 2003, a time when the White House was working to discredit Wilson. A former U.S. ambassador, Wilson was dispatched to Niger to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Africa. Wilson said he told U.S. officials there was nothing to those reports. But the president later used the claim anyway in his 2003 State of the Union address, prompting Wilson to charge the administration had manipulated the intelligence about Iraq. The week after he went public, journalist Robert Novak first reported that Wilson‚Äôs wife, Plame, worked for the CIA‚Äîa disclosure that prompted allegations that administration officials had ‚Äúouted her‚Äù in retaliation for Wilson‚Äôs criticism.”

For the record, I consider Michael Isokoff a higher paid version of Hardball’s David Shuster in the veracity department.¬†¬† In fact this is a good example of journalism with imagination mixed with muckracking.¬† The logic: “Rove got a supoena therefore that means he’s going down!” is familiar, as all those familiar with the Fitz-fizz can attest to.

Yet you’ve got to love the tired use of those “Lawyers close to the case”, as there is actually NO “case” as the “case” was closed when Libby was indicted.¬† As far as supoenas are concerned, I’ll bet Rove got one, Bartlett and other WH officials.¬† By the way so have some media types and by last count it was more of them than the other.¬† In fact you haven’t heard any whinning from Rove or Bartlett trying to get out of the testimony, but you have heard a slew of comlaining from the media types.¬† Seems Rove has gone out of his way to clear the air while the MSM people like Tim Russert have played the “What? I didn’t do nothing, heh, heh, I didn’t say anything, why don’t you stop picking on me!”

Fact to remember, the only jail time done so far has been by a reporter.

That anyone is receiving a supoena means squat.¬† Defense will call whom they will.¬† Will their testimony reveal any scantilizing tidbits?¬† Something we don’t know after all the over analysis of the story that wasn’t there?¬† Will it show Rove making midnight calls to the media with hanky over his mouth spilling the name of Valerie Plame?

Again, doesn’t matter, as again, and repeat this until it sinks in.¬† Fitzgerald did not charge anyone with leaking a covert operative’s name because – take a breath those with RDS – Valerie Plame wasn’t covert, nor protected.¬† That case was in fact over in 2004.¬† Libby was charged with lying about a crime that never happened.

Only in America!

It’s absolutely amazing how convoluted this story has become. ¬† If anyone should be having their collective asses held to the fire it’s the media themselves, because while you have one Karl Rove in the story, you have no less than six journalists involved, including one mentioned by Isokoff.¬† Again, remember Shuster:

“The possibility that Rove could be called to testify would bring his own role into sharper focus‚Äîand could prove important to Libby‚Äôs lawyers for several reasons. Rove has said in secret testimony that, during a chat on July 11, 2003, Libby told him he learned about Plame‚Äôs employment at the CIA from NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert, a legal source who asked not to be identified talking about grand jury matters told NEWSWEEK. If Rove repeats that story on the witness stand, it could back up Libby‚Äôs core assertion that he honestly, if mistakenly, thought he had heard about Wilson‚Äôs wife from the ‚ÄúMeet the Press‚Äù host‚Äîeven though Russert denies he knew anything about Plame, and more than a half-dozen officials (including Cheney) have said they passed along the same information to Libby earlier than that.”

Ah, “Little Russ”, his involvement is truly the story that will never go away.¬† Of course there is also Andrea Mitchell who screwed up the game plan when she told MSNBC’s Don Imus that “everyone knew of plame” – something she later and unsuccessfully tried to deny.