WASHINGTON - A spy outed. A reporter jailed. And now, a White House operative fingered.
Democrats couldn't have spun a more intriguing conspiracy theory around Karl Rove, President Bush's political guru and top adviser, if they'd tried.
As Rove emerges as a central figure in an ever-more-provocative case involving the unmasking of a CIA agent, Democrats and liberal groups are seizing on the story as proof of their more sweeping charge that Bush has put partisan loyalty and political advantage ahead of national security.
Recent news accounts have stirred speculation that Rove exposed the identity of Valerie Plame, whose husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked to discredit Bush's case for going to war in Iraq. The flurry of reports has given fresh impetus to anti-Bush forces, who have long sought evidence that the White House will go to any lengths to stifle dissent over its policies, especially the decision to go to war in Iraq.
Yesterday, the White House refused to repeat its denials that Rove had broken the law.
Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, declined to answer questions about Rove's involvement in the matter, leading Democrats to charge him with stonewalling, thus adding Watergate-era rhetoric to the mix.
Liberal groups are calling for Rove's ouster, saying he broke the law by revealing Plame's identity, first reported in 2003 by columnist Robert Novak.
Republicans dismissed Democrats' condemnations of Rove as politically motivated name-calling and accused Democrats of using the episode to smear the Bush administration for partisan gain.
Most Republicans followed the White House lead, refusing to comment on specifics until all the facts are known.
"There's an ongoing investigation on this, so it would be premature for us to comment, but the Democrats sure are trying to score political points off of it. They're just playing partisan politics without knowing the facts," said Ron Bonjean, communications director for House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois.
Investigating the leak
A federal prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has been investigating the leak of Plame's name to journalists since December 2003. His probe reportedly centers on whether someone in the White House outed Plame to retaliate against Wilson for his op-ed piece in The New York Times that criticized Bush for relying on discredited information when he said in a State of the Union speech that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Niger as part of a nuclear arms program.
