Did Cheney Tell Libby to Do It?

O'Reilly was at times hostile. "The central theme of your book is wrong," he exclaimed. "You're telling me I didn't do my job, and I'm telling you you're crazy," he protested. "Let me sum this up by saying: You put the worst possible spin on all of this."

To which McClellan responded: "No, if I said it was sinister and that they intentionally did it -- I did not say it was deliberate or conscious. I say that we got caught in this campaign mentality and that's what caused us to overstate the case."

McClellan was unflappable throughout, and even slapped down O'Reilly's clumsy and absurd defense of his now Fox-News colleague Karl Rove.

O'Reilly: "What's your beef on Karl Rove and Plame, Valerie Plame? What's your beef about Rove specifically? Because he works for us."

McClellan: "Well, I spoke with Rove about that very incident, and he told me unequivocally that he was not involved in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity."

O'Reilly: "Right. That's what he told me. So are you telling me he's a liar?"

McClellan: "Did he reveal Plame's identity to anyone? Yes! Matt Cooper. He revealed her identity to Matt Cooper."

O'Reilly: "He said Cooper called him and said -- "

McClellan: "No, what Cooper wrote was that he was the first one to tell me -- the first time I learned that she worked at the CIA."

O'Reilly: "You believe Cooper and you don't believe Rove? . . . I asked him on this show last week. I asked him, did you tell anyone about Valerie Plame. The guy says no. I didn't. No!"

McClellan: "Her name! He said her name. It's a distinction without a difference, Bill. He revealed her identity. He talked to [Robert] Novak and he talked to Cooper and he revealed her identity."

Later last night, Rove responded on another Fox News show to McClellan's statements. Rove is apparently maintaining his hair-splitting defense that since he didn't use Plame's name, he didn't reveal her identity. And he once again tried to change the focus to State Department official Richard Armitage. Armitage was the first to disclose Plame's identity to journalists, but that doesn't change the fact that Rove and Libby did so too, likely for more nefarious reasons than Armitage, and then lied about it.