The email of the species is more deadly than the mail

Okay, if the names "Rove" and "Joe Wilson" mean anything to you, this post may be of interest, if not, move on. Some information is out there regarding an email that Rove's lawyers are trying to spin as proving that he didn't lie about trashing Joe Wilson via his wife.

But as the aforementioned lovely-and-talenteds at firedoglake draw our attention to, there are one or two places where the connections just don't hold up...

(First section is from an article by Michael Isikoff)

Why didn't the Rove e-mail surface earlier? The lawyer says it's because an electronic search conducted by the White House missed it because the right "search words" weren't used.

This new information about the email production just makes no sense. I can't even figure out why they would want to put it out there. And someone who knows more about document production can correct me, but based on my limited experience, the chain of events as sketched by Camp Rove is supposed to look something like this:

1. Abu Gonzales sends the an email telling everyone to turn over relevant documents regarding Joe Wilson, the Niger forgeries and any contact with media.

2. White House IT people do a document search that curiously does not contain the words "Wilson," "Niger" or "Time Magazine."

...Presuming we know even a fraction of what is going on, there are only two explanations I can come up with. One, they are going for something really weird like it took Luskin 10 months to read them all.

Or, we are in a situation like we were when the Dick Cheney leak got floated in the NYT four days before the Libby indictment: somebody may feel like indictment day is just around the corner and is trying to get information out there so its impact can dissipate before the boom lowers.

I imagine this comparision will be driven into the ground in the coming weeks, but I'd like to get it in early: Is it possible that email could be to this administration was tape was to Nixon?