Why did Rove out Plame

With Time magazine about to do a data dump in the federal court, speculation on the source of the leak runs rampant. Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, says he knows who it is. Still unconfirmed but if E&P published it, it's got to have some credibility.

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

Makes sense to me but it still doesn't answer the question - why did Rove do it and why didn't Novak go down for it? That answer comes from Steven Kite at Kite Tales who weighs in via email with this brilliant theory.

So if it's not about whodunit, then what IS it about? Nailing somebody for perjury? Why? ...

So. Cooper. ...Miller: ...Both significant enough names to be noticed, both working for major publications which are beginning to be disloyal, both refused to spread an administration smear job.

Novak: Utterly and completely reliable. Doesn't crap without permission, PISSES PNAC koolaid. His journalistic "style" consists of copyediting WH/DOD press releases for grammar and punctuation and claiming credit. Ran administration smear job as ordered.

Cooper and Miller, who didn't run the story, go to jail. Government spends a great deal of time, effort, and money sending them, ostensibly for withholding info which the government could have gotten easily in several other ways. Novak, who did what he was told, walks.

Here's the money quote.

Lesson: We don't CARE who you are or who you work for. We don't CARE what you might have done for us in the past. When we tell you to run something, be it legal, illegal, treasonous, even prima facie murderous, you RUN IT. WE are the government, YOU are the peons. What you think doesn't matter, you will do what we tell you or we will destroy your lives. We recognize no higher good, no system, no "rights" for anyone but ourselves. We own the courts, we own the Congress, the bill of rights means what we say it means, no more and no less. When you're told to run something, you run it. Or your successor does.

And that makes perfect sense to me. Anyone else have a better explanation?