Beyond the Karl Rove Frenzy

With the frenzy surrounding Karl Rove, The Washington Note highlights this post from Antiwar.com by way of reminding us that there's more to come and that Rove is not likely to be at the center of the Plame scandal. The Karl Rove talking points have been about Rove himself and about tearing down Joseph Wilson, which is how this whole thing got started. As Steve Clemons points out, unlike other investigations, we are far from hearing all that the grand jury has heard:

[Special prosecutor Patrick] Fitzgerald has run the tightest ship that I remember among a long list of independent prosecutors.

A recap in today's Washington Post indicates that Fitzgerald is conducting thorough inverstigation:

Lawyers who have sat in on the prosecutors' interviews said Fitzgerald cast a wide net, adopting a broad view of the case. Some witnesses were asked only about the initial disclosure, others about possible misstatements during the investigative phase. Some were brought in several times. Rove, for example, was grilled by FBI agents twice in formal meetings and asked to respond to questions in informal settings, and appeared three times before the grand jury -- all between October 2003 and October 2004, said a person familiar with his testimony.

Frank Rich, in a column titled "Follow the Uranium," sees the Karl Rove frenzy as just one of several sub-plots in a larger story:

To see the main plot, you must sweep away the subplots, starting with the Cooper e-mail. It has been brandished as a smoking gun by Bush bashers and as exculpatory evidence by Bush backers (Mr. Rove, you see, was just trying to ensure that Time had its facts straight). But no one knows what this e-mail means unless it's set against the avalanche of other evidence, most of it secret, including what Mr. Rove said in three appearances before the grand jury. Therein lies the rub, or at least whatever case might be made for perjury.

Stay tuned.