Where's Karl Rove?

Given all the off-message craziness around the White House (or should that be Crawford?) these days, it's pretty obvious Karl Rove is on holidays, getting some much-needed "me time" just like his mate George.

Meanwhile, that little issue of his criminal perjury (or worse) refuses to go away. The latest question (from Murray Waas) is why former Attorney General John Ashcroft took such a personal interest in the Rove-Plame case, including close inspection of secret FBI information, when he should have recused himself immediately (Rove was a personal friend who had worked on several Ashcroft campaigns).

Here's John Conyers on the latest PlameGate revelations:

"The new information, that Ashcroft had not only refused to recuse himself over a period of months, but also was insisting on being personally briefed about a matter implicating his friend, Karl Rove, represents a stunning ethical breach that cries out for an immediate investigation by the Department's Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General."

Of course, it wasn't just Ashcroft - his office was packed with people who had partisan Rebublikud backgrounds that included working closely with Rove:

Foremost among them was David Isrealite, who served as Ashcroft’s deputy chief of staff. Another, Barbara Comstock, who was the Justice Department's director of public affairs during much of Ashcroft's tenure, had previously worked for the Republican National Committee, where she was in charge of the party's "opposition research" operations.

What does it all mean?

First, they show that from the very earliest days of the criminal probe, federal investigators had a strong belief and body of evidence that Rove and perhaps other officials might be misleading them.

Second, the new information underscores that career Justice Department staffers had concerns that the continued role of Ashcroft and other political aides might tarnish the investigation.

Finally, the new information once again highlights the importance of the testimony of journalists in uncovering whether anyone might have broken the law by disclosing classified information regarding Plame. That is because both Rove and I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney—who are at the center of the Plame investigation—have said that they did not learn of Plame's employment with the CIA from classified government information, but rather journalists; without the testimony of journalists, prosecutors have been unable to get to the bottom of the matter.

If Rove and others really did learn Plame's identity via a journalist, as they originally claimed, that journalist was almost certainly Judith "WMD Scoops" Miller. As Atrios says:

I can't think of any reason that Judith Miller shouldn't answer the following question:

Did you inform Karl Rove or Scooter Libby that Joe Wilson's wife was a CIA operative?

There's no source confidentialy issue there at all, not even in the fevered imagination of [NYT editor] Bill Keller.

PS: I recommend you do a Google News search on "Karl Rove" every day. It helps keep his name in the news and you never know what you might find.