Cheney to Face Nats Fans

" 'People have made too much of the difference in/How I described Karl and Libby/I've talked to Libby./I said it was ridiculous about Karl/And it is ridiculous about Libby./Libby was not the source of the Novak story./And he did not leak classified information.' "

Murray Waas weighs in on the National Journal Web site and adds, based on his interviews with senior officials: "In yet another instance, Libby had claimed that President Bush authorized Libby to speak to and provide classified information to Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward for 'Plan of Attack,' a book written by Woodward about the run-up to the Iraqi war."

Waas reported in the National Journal last month that Libby had testified that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" to disclose classified information. Of course, Libby didn't have many other superiors, besides Cheney and Bush. But this is the first time it's been directly alleged that Bush himself was involved.

Speaking of Waas, I wrote in Friday's column about how unseemly it is for the traditional media powers to be ignoring Waas's scoops.

Now Greg Sargent in the American Prospect takes another stab at explicating the relevance of Waas's work, including his March 30 story about Bush administration deceptions about Iraq.

Writes Sargent: "To do this we need to step back and look at his revelation in the context of the ongoing investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame. If you do, you can see that what once were a bunch of disparate subplots -- the pre-war duplicity, the 2004 election, the Libby indictment, the continuing investigation into Karl Rove -- suddenly can be woven together into one grand narrative that makes coherent sense in a way that much of this story didn't before. And the resulting storyline is not a pretty one."

Earlier Wednesday

Earlier Wednesday, the judge in the Libby case issued a ruling.

Pete Yost writes for the Associated Press: "A federal judge in the CIA leak case set limits on the ability of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff to challenge prosecutors who are reluctant to provide classified information to the defendant."

Blogger Tom Maguire is making himself indispensable by Web-publishing the documents in the case.

Immigration Watch

Glenn Thrush and Craig Gordon write in Newsday: "Embattled White House political czar Karl Rove has injected himself into the increasingly chaotic immigration battle in the Senate, lobbying GOP senators in hopes they'll accept a guest worker program reviled by some conservatives in his party.

"On Monday, Rove met at the White House with Republican senators, including Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.). Yesterday, he worked the phones, conferring with Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and others pushing a compromise aimed at uniting fractured Senate Republicans.

"Rove's involvement highlights the stakes for the White House and underscores Rove's belief that a liberalized immigration policy will help the GOP make inroads with Hispanic voters. Rove's ongoing legal troubles - he remains under investigation in a case involving the leak of a CIA agent's identity - have kept him mostly on the political sidelines in recent months."