Unity Only Goes So Far

Bush is on his way back from Scotland, and will sign the condolence book at the British Embassy after returning to Washington in the afternoon.

How Things Have Changed

Terrorists are still out there, but Bush's responsiveness is much improved.

Ron Hutcheson writes for Knight Ridder Newspapers: "Like a scene out of a James Bond movie, President Bush turned briefly aside from an international summit in Scotland to enter a specially equipped hotel suite, where he conducted a secure video conference with his national security advisers back home. . . .

"The fast response showed how much has changed in the almost four years since the Sept. 11 attacks, but no one claimed that the precautions offered anything close to full protection from terrorists. . . .

"The well-coordinated federal response contrasted with the confusion that followed the Sept. 11 attacks, when a noticeably shaken Bush sat with a group of schoolchildren after being told that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. After leaving the Florida school, the president boarded Air Force One for a meandering flight to military bases in Louisiana and Nebraska before returning to Washington that evening."

Valerie Plame and Karl Rove

Dan Balz writes in The Washington Post: "The jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller on Wednesday put the issue of press freedom and the confidentiality of sources on front pages across the country, but the heart of the case remains what it has been from the outset: whether senior Bush officials broke the law in the disclosure of a CIA covert operative's identity. . . .

"Now, a fast-moving series of decisions over the past week involving Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper have brought a renewed public focus on what role White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove may have played in disclosing the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame."

What about all those public denials that Rove was involved? Could Rove's lawyer and White House spokesmen have just been playing word games? Balz raises that possibility.

"In an interview with The Washington Post on Wednesday, Luskin denied that Cooper had received a call from Rove releasing him from his confidentiality pledge. Yesterday, however, Luskin declined to comment on a New York Times report that the release came as a result of negotiations involving Rove's and Cooper's attorneys, nor would he speculate that Cooper was released from his pledge in some other fashion than a direct conversation with Rove. 'I'm not going to comment any further,' Luskin said.

"The admission that Rove had spoken to Cooper appeared at odds with previous White House statements. In retrospect, however, these statements -- which some interpreted as emphatic denials -- were in fact carefully worded."

David Corn weighed in on the issue twice yesterday. In the Nation, he adds this "intriguing wrinkle" to Cooper's last-minute release from confidentiality. "Cooper's source only granted him a waiver to speak before the grand jury. He is not free, Cooper told me after the hearing, to discuss in public this source and the contents of his conversation with this source. In essence, the source made sure that Cooper -- if he were going to cooperate with [special prosecutor Partrick] Fitzgerald--would not be able to ID him (or her) in public."

And on Tompaine.com, Corn baldly speculates about what Fitzgerald and Rove are up to.