[Update: here's a link to today's WH press briefing] Don't you just hate it when ...
Your Supreme Court nomination is so uncontroversial that it fails to keep stuff like this and this off the front page of the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal for more than a day...?
And doesn't it just suck when your head fake works for that one day, but then pisses everybody off afterward? WaPo's Howard Kurtz reports that some Washington journos ... and even some Republican operatives, are feeling used by the White House's disinformation campaign:
It doesn't help much that this information got out:
Bush accelerated his search for a Supreme Court nominee in part because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name, according to Republicans familiar with administration strategy.
Bush originally had planned to announce a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 26 or 27, just before his planned July 28 departure for a month-long vacation at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, said two administration officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named.
The officials said those plans changed because Rove has become a focus of Fitzgerald's interest and of news accounts about the matter.
But of course, that doesn't matter, because today, we're right back where we started from:
(Photo courtesy Crooks and Liars. Click here for the caption). The press corps is pissed, GOP "sources" feel burned by the white light of disclosure yet again, and you know that can only mean one thing: it's all going to be taken out on poor Scott McClellan.
...So who's leaking all this good stuff? Kos speculates that it's the CIA. But since the chain of custody for the memo went from the State Department to Air Force One (and where in between we don't know), don't rule out Foggy Bottom... Here's an interesting tidbit from TalkLeft: Given that Colin Powell had the memo with him on July 7, 2003 on Air Force One when the President and his entourage left for Africa, and that Fitzgerald subpoenaed phone records for Air Force one during that period, Fitzgerald may be assuming that someone leaked information from the memo. So, who saw the memo on Air Force One besides Colin Powell?
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