The outing of Joe Wilson continues...

Now we know why Chucky Schumer and Joe Wilson had their big press conference yesterday, they knew all of this information was coming out today in the NY Times, Washington Post, AP and Washington Times. They needed to distract.

The NY Times is reporting today that Karl Rove spoke with Robert Novak about Valerie Plame some days before Novak's column outed Valerie Plame as a CIA "operative." However, the Times says it was Novak who called Rove about a different matter and then changed the subject and asked Rove about Valerie Plame. Novak identified her to Rove using her maiden name and also informed Rove of the circumstances surrounding her husbands mission to Niger to investigate Iraq yellowcake claims.

Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.

After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too."

Of course now Judith Miller's roll in all of this becomes even more interesting. Why would she still be in jail? Is she the source? Did she out Plame to Novak? or to Rove? or to both? Or is there someone else that she is protecting?

Lots of good information can be found at InstaPundit, Tom Maguire, Mickey Kaus, and another theory here. Even more great stuff at Betsy Newmarks Page and Michele Malkin.

By the way, can the headline in the NY Times be anymore misleading to the actual content of the story? Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer

The AP surprisingly has a fairly balanced take on the same story being reported by the NY Times, even the headline is accurate.

And now Joe Wilson himself is deflating the story with this surprising admission on CNN yesterday;

BLITZER: But the other argument that's been made against you is that you've sought to capitalize on this extravaganza, having that photo shoot with your wife, who was a clandestine officer of the CIA, and that you've tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all of that.

What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations, as you know, that have been leveled against you.

WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.

BLITZER: But she hadn't been a clandestine officer for some time before that?

WILSON: That's not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I'll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that's why they referred it to the Justice Department.

She was not a clandestine officer at the time that that article in Vanity Fair appeared. And I have every right to have the American public know who I am and not to have myself defined by those who would write the sorts of things that are coming out, being spewed out of the mouths of the RNC...