Is There Actually a Slimier Job in the World than Being Karl Rove's Lawyer?

Lawrence O’Donnell, who asserted Friday that Puppetmaster of the Mayberry Machiavellians, Karl Rove, would be named as the leak in the Plame Case, has a follow-up in the Huffington Post:

Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had his holiday weekend ruined on Friday when I broke the story that the e-mails that Time delivered to the special prosecutor that afternoon reveal that Karl Rove is the source Matt Cooper has been protecting for two years…

Luskin … told Newsweek that his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information." Knowingly. That is the most important word Luskin said in what has now become his public version of the Rove defense.

Not coincidentally, the word 'knowing' is the most important word in the controlling statute (U.S. Code: Title 50: Section 421). To violate the law, Rove had to tell Cooper about a covert agent "knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."

Let the spin begin.

That’s the kind of shit that really, really drives me crazy. In my rant about truth having become the great liberal conspiracy, I wrote:

It is as though we have been asked, and, inexplicably, collectively agreed, to rid ourselves of common sense and our very understanding of human nature.

Acceptance of anything this administration says seems to be predicated upon a person’s willingness to dump their critical thinking skills, and this is yet another example. What person, with even a modicum of logic, the barest understanding of human nature, and a passing acquaintance with Rove’s role in the Bush administration would possibly believe that he could have passed on Valerie Plame’s name without knowing she was a covert agent and/or that the government was trying to ensure she stayed that way? What reason would he have had to even discuss her otherwise?!

Unbelievable. If this defense flies, I shall truly struggle not to abandon all hope for our collective future, because it means our ruling party has officially sacrificed every last shred of reason and decency to the altar of power, and allowed their absolute power to corrupt, absolutely.