Speaking of being with or against this administration, how about if we look at the defense for Karl Rove not outing or least not have any intent of outing a covert CIA employee. Now let's apply what I understand folks in the legal field in the USA refer to as the reasonable person standard to that very case to see how it would look.

Now let's allow for the fact that even if Rove "our man," did out a covert CIA, he surely didn't have any intent to do so using this reasonable person standard. Hey, how can this be? Here's Rove if what he's saying is true, using this standard, outing a CIA employee, who supposedly is a known CIA employee. Now as a result of such action by Rove, if it was a known CIA employee but not known to be opposed to this administration's Iraq policy, this would have the effect-- "surprise, surprise" of making the case that much stronger for those opposing this administration's pollicy on Iraq and making the case for the administration's policy there look much less credible with this person in the CIA not having been known to be opposed to this administration's Iraq policy now known to oppose it. By the reasonable person standard, this does help Patrick Fitzgerald to make a strong case to a grand jury, if he can use it, and as I'm not a legal expert I can't advise on that, but if he can, then his case against Rove, "our man," becomes more than a bit stronger. Now "our man" could go for the temporary insanity defense, but I'm not too convinced "our man" plans to do that. But I "have to say" that "our man" has just as much right to use the temporary insanity defense as anybody else. Now that's that!

Without the temporary insanity defense, if the reasonable standard of a person's behavior comes into play in this case, I would be willing to bet any law professor or legal scholar worth his or her salt would say "our man" could be in for a bit of tough time, and not only with the grand jury, but also in any trial that might follow. I'm just trying to share some positive thoughts with everyone else here over these bleak holidays.

Actually, Ron Reagan put it much more succinctly when he asked this question: "Why was anyone in the White House discussing Valerie Plame at all? Why did the name of Valerie Plame even come up?"