Posted 3:47 PM by steve

Mark Kleiman, the liberal whose money is soon to be in my pocket points to this John Dean piece that is supposed to all bad news for Karl Rove... specifically, that Rove faces exposure under Title 18, United States Code, Section 641, a law that was used to prosecute Jonathan Randel for leaking secret. As Dean himself puts it, "this is a law that prohibits theft (or conversion for one's own use) of government records and information for non-governmental purposes", but Dean claims that it would apply in this case.

Unfortunately for the Rove-haters, according to the particulars of the Randel case, Randel faced 18 counts: one for the actual theft of the classified material, a second count related to Randel's accessing the material through a government computer and wire fraud and the balance of the charges were for wire fraud.

But, unless there's something I am unaware of, Rove wasn't paid for the information about Plame (the MSM doesn't pay for stories!), as Randel was alleged to have done. Nor did Rove use a government computer to access the information about Valerie Plame.

So where exactly is Rove at risk? It's one thing for a gung-ho US Attorney - under pressure from Ashcroft and the State Department - to mold this statute to the particulars of the Randel case, guessing that Randel didn't have the resources to fight... it's a whole different thing for Fitzgerald to try to do the same with Rove. If Fitzgerald goes after Rove, he won't do it by stretching a law that was never contemplated being used in situations such as this. And, if by chance Fitzgerald does go crazy, I'm sure the liberals who decried the way Starr went after Clinton will be the first to criticize Fitzgerald.


And, this thought just occurred to me: this is shaping up a lot like the election in 2000 and 2004. Those on the left are so sure that Rove is in trouble that they're going to all go crazy (yes, this is the mother of all straight lines) if/when things don't play out the way the Lost Kos's are counting on. They're as committed to the idea that Rove is going to be indicted as they were to the idea that the American people would repudiate Bush last November... and we all know how things turned out when - despite what every liberal knew in their heart was going to happen - Kerry lost. Visits to mental health professionals went up. Liberals emigrated to Canada. Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!. I'm afraid, as mean as things are now, things will be even worse...