From revelation to revolution, and attention must be paid

Here's what John in DC, writing in AmericaBlog, thinks is the big revelation in the new Judy Miller NYT article.

So President Bush ordered the White House staff to cooperate fully, tell everything they knew, and waive any reporter privileges they had. Scooter Libby turned around and behind the President's back told Judy Miller, ignore the president and don't accept my waiver.

Why is Scooter Libby still working in the White House after directly undercutting the president on a direct order?

For what it's worth, I still think Bush and Cheney's hands are dirty up to their wrists in this. I think Libby and Rove are essentially throwing themselves in front of the train. But as Frank Rich wrote today (thank you, Hoffmania), even if Bush & Cheney were innocent of any knowledge of what their "brain" and Chief Of Staff did...

Now, as always, what matters most in this case is not whether Mr. Rove and Lewis Libby engaged in a petty conspiracy to seek revenge on a whistle-blower, Joseph Wilson, by unmasking his wife, Valerie, a covert C.I.A. officer. What makes Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation compelling, whatever its outcome, is its illumination of a conspiracy that was not at all petty: the one that took us on false premises into a reckless and wasteful war in Iraq. That conspiracy was instigated by Mr. Rove's boss, George W. Bush, and Mr. Libby's boss, Dick Cheney.

Just a little reminder (to you and myself) to keep our eyes on the ball. Speaking of, Rich further goes on to say,

"Bush's Brain" is the title of James Moore and Wayne Slater's definitive account of Mr. Rove's political career. But Mr. Rove is less his boss's brain than another alliterative organ (or organs), that which provides testosterone. As we learn in "Bush's Brain," bad things (usually character assassination) often happen to Bush foes, whether Ann Richards or John McCain. On such occasions, Mr. Bush stays compassionately above the fray while the ruthless Mr. Rove operates below the radar, always separated by "a layer of operatives" from any ill behavior that might implicate him. "There is no crime, just a victim," Mr. Moore and Mr. Slater write of this repeated pattern.