Jim VandeHei and Carol Leonnig have a new article in the Washington Post that details the latest skinny on Karl Rove, Fitzgerald, and the current state of affairs in the White House. There is a lot to digest, but one thing is clear: the long knives are out:

Top White House aides are privately discussing the future of Karl Rove, with some expressing doubt that President Bush can move beyond the damaging CIA leak case as long as his closest political strategist remains in the administration.

If Rove stays, which colleagues say remains his intention, he may at a minimum have to issue a formal apology for misleading colleagues and the public about his role in conversations that led to the unmasking of CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to senior Republican sources familiar with White House deliberations.

Replace the name ‘Rove’ with the name ‘Cheney’ and we would really be getting somewhere. But the very idea of any administration official issuing a ‘formal apology’ for anything strikes my funnybone. Who are these ‘colleagues’ kidding?

:::flip:::
And the article just gets more ironic:

Bush’s top advisers are considering whether it is tenable for Rove to remain on the staff, given that Fitzgerald has already documented something that Rove and White House official spokesmen once emphatically denied — that he played a central role in discussions with journalists about Plame’s role at the CIA and her marriage to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a critic of the Iraq war.

That’s funny, because we have been considering whether it is tenable for Bush to remain on the staff, given that Fitzgerald has already documented something that Bush and White House official spokesmen once emphatically stated didn’t happen, and was ridiculous. Bush promised to fire anyone who was involved in the leak, but he doesn’t seem inclined to ask for Cheney’s resignation, or to fire any of his staff. Which makes me wonder about the following:

“Karl does not have any real enemies in the White House, but there are a lot of people in the White House wondering how they can put this behind them if the cloud remains over Karl,” said a GOP strategist who has discussed the issue with top White House officials. “You can not have that [fresh] start as long as Karl is there.”

Once again, replace the name ‘Rove’ with the names ‘Bush’ or ‘Cheney’ and we would be getting closer to the truth. But since they insist on using the name ‘Rove’ we have to assume that some strategists think they can cauterize the wound by removing the Turdblossom. And that would seem to indicate that Rove does have some enemies in the White House. For example:

A swift resolution is needed in part to ease staff tension, a number of people inside and out of the White House said. Many mid-level staffers inside have expressed frustration that press secretary Scott McClellan’s credibility was undermined by Rove, who told the spokesman that he was not involved in the leak, according to people familiar with the case…

McClellan relayed Rove’s denial to reporters from the White House lectern in 2003, and he has not yet offered a public explanation for his inaccurate statements. “That is affecting everybody,” said a Republican who has discussed the issue with the White House. “Scott personally is really beaten down by this. Everybody I talked to talks about this.”

Things are turning strange when ‘mid-level staffers’ get uppity and start whining about the Rovester’s duplicity. Why doesn’t McClellan just quit (lying) and find a cushy job? Does he really think people will start being nice to him if Rove gets the axe?

There is clearly something bigger going on, and I think this article is preparing the public for Rove’s imminent resignation. It appears that Rove is still in the crosshairs.

While Rove faces doubts about his White House status, there are new indications that he remains in legal jeopardy from Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation of the Plame leak. The prosecutor spoke this week with an attorney for Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about his client’s conversations with Rove before and after Plame’s identity became publicly known because of anonymous disclosures by White House officials, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.

Fitzgerald is considering charging Rove with making false statements in the course of the 22-month probe, and sources close to Rove — who holds the titles of senior adviser and White House deputy chief of staff — said they expect to know within weeks whether the most powerful aide in the White House will be accused of a crime…

Sources close to Rove say one pressing problem for him is that he initially did not tell investigators he had a conversation with Cooper, then he produced an e-mail to a colleague in which he reported he had spoken to Cooper. He told the grand jury he could recollect very little of the conversation other than a discussion of welfare, sources said.

According to sources who were made aware of the conservation, Fitzgerald has been speaking with Cooper’s attorney, Richard Sauber, by telephone in the past three days. He is said to have posed several questions to clarify whether Cooper had other conversations with Rove before and after the crucial July 12, 2003, discussion during which Cooper said Rove told him that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA.

The aim was apparently to discern how common conversations were between Rove and the reporter, then a newcomer to the White House beat.

But, here is the money shot:

White House critics said Rove’s continued presence would expose Bush as a hypocrite.

The long knives are indeed out.