AMERICAblog has this right:

Sloppy reporting

I'm noticing more and more news stories getting very sloppy with the latest twist to the Rove story. What those stories are trying to say is:

1. Rove claims he learned about Plame being CIA from other journalists and not from government sources. Even were that true, it's irrelevant to a senior government official leaking the name of a CIA agent - it doesn't matter how he found out. He knows better, and he flagrantly risked national security for petty revenge.
   
   
2. Rove now claims he confirmed for Novak that he heard Plame was CIA, but that Novak asked him about her CIA connections first. Again, irrelevant. He confirmed an undercover CIA agent to a journalist, is he mad? I mean, if a journalist said "so, I hear we're invading Syria on August 15" would Rove respond, "yeah I heard that too"? No, he wouldn't. This kind of journalist prying happens all the time. But Rove decided to answer this time, putting our national security at risk.
   
   
3. Matt Cooper's notes show that it was ROVE who offered Plame's CIA connection to TIME magazine, without any prompting from Matt Cooper. So, the Novak story is irrelevant either way. All the Novak story shows is that there's now a pattern of Rove outing Plame as CIA to numerous journalists.
   
   
4. The White House lied to the press corp and the American people for two years, saying that Rove had nothing to do with the leak, and he did.
   
   
5. President Bush said he'd fire the leaker, and now he's backing off of his own word.
   
   

Those are facts.

I would only add: the White House was very weaselly and legalistic in its statements about finding the leaker and firing them, so #4 and #5 may not be slam-dunks.

BUT: they certainly tried to give the impression that they were being upright and forthright, so it's certainly fair to treat them as though that's what The American Public understood them to be saying.

Making them defend themselves by admitting "Um, actually, we were being very very weaselly and legalistic" is not a bad thing.

Oh, Mr. Vice President...were you saying something?

They will offer more lectures, and legalisms, and carefully worded denials.

We offer another way...a better way... and a stiff dose of truth.

Big lie.