PlameGate: Rove Takes Control of the Story?

I was wondering how long this would take. I mean, it's been pretty quiet, hasn't it? Scotty McLellan's stone-walling (today's focal point: the "12-hour" question) has almost become boring, as the novelty of reporters actually asking hard questions wears off. Fitzgerald is keeping quite, letting all the bloggers and big-mouthed politicians slow-feed him fresh information and new twists.

Not surprisingly, Karl Rove is depriving the story of oxygen.

But meanwhile, where is the other part of the old Bush-Rove fall-back scheme? You know, the knuckle-duster part...

Here it is, courtesy of Kos. You might at first be happy to hear that Congress plans to scrutinize Plame-related issues. But wait a minute, they are not going to investigate how numerous top White House officials disclosed a US agent's identity - they are going to try to introduce new legislation making it harder for anyone to leak any information to the media. See how clever that is? You pretend to be cracking down on the person(s) who leaked Plame's identity, while actually you are building a new wall of non-accountability around the Bush White House gang. Any future whistle-lowers will be labelled criminals and locked up.

And that's not all. Pat Roberts, head of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, will simultaneously be putting the heat on both the CIA and Fitzgerald himself.

The question is, will the media take the bait and duly report these high-falutin' talking-head gab-fests? Will the public tolerate even more Fascist laws coming out of the US Senate? And can Rove keep the lid on the Fitzgerald enquiry for another three years?

I think the reason why Bush and Rove have recently come under so much pressure is that they started jailing reporters. That was enough for journos to start confronting their own editors (most of whom used to be journos once themselves) and getting more agressively anti-Bush with their stories. Not surprisingly, given Bush's abysmal poll figures, the public has been lapping it up.

Can Rove put the media back in their pro-GOP box and swing the story back to where it was? Or have the anti-Bush floodgates opened for good?