Overshadowed

For one brief, shining hour, Karl Rove was the lead story in America. Okay, an hour and a half.

Then the White House disclosed that President Bush had stealthily arrived in Baghdad, and Rove's avoiding indictment in the Valerie Plame case was relegated to distinctly secondary status.

If I were him, I'd be teed off. Rove has endured months of will-he-or-won't-he speculation in the press, and the one day his lawyer gets to tell the world he won't face charges -- and that Rove in effect gets to keep his job -- the boss upstages him.

Obviously, the Baghdad trip was planned in advance and the timing was coincidental. But just as surely, it knocked Rove out of the lead position on every network broadcast and front page.

This is not to say Rove has been utterly vindicated. After all, we learned that he discussed Plame's identity with two reporters--and didn't remember his conversation with Time's Matt Cooper in an initial grand jury appearance--after the White House had assured the world that he had no involvement in the tawdry matter. That's not exactly a badge of honor.

Prosecutors, special or otherwise, aren't in the business of "clearing" people. They decide whether they have enough evidence to bring a criminal charge with a reasonable chance of winning at trial. This was obviously a close call, or Patrick Fitzgerald wouldn't have let it drag on so long, but in the end he made the call in Rove's favor.

The NYT has the basic outlines:

"The decision by a special prosecutor not to bring charges against Karl Rove in the C.I.A. leak case followed months of intense, behind-the-scenes maneuvering between the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and Mr. Rove's lawyer, according to lawyers in the case.

"The move, made public by Mr. Rove's lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, early today, brought a surprise ending to the investigation of Mr. Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, who at one point last fall seemed to be close to facing possible perjury charges for lapses in his early testimony about a conversation with a Time magazine reporter. . . .

"A spokesman for Mr. Rove's legal team, Mark Corallo, said that Mr. Rove had made no deals to cooperate with the prosecution in any way, and that the decision was purely based on Mr. Fitzgerald's own findings."

Okay, so he didn't flip.

The LAT has some reax: