From a White House pool report this afternoon:

On the tarmac in North Carolina, your pool was able to walk briefly alongside the president and ask if he still had faith in Karl Rove.

The question was met with a stare straight ahead, silence and a quick brush-off motion of Bush’s left hand, as if the president were Swatting away an insect.

Ken Mehlman has a new favorite talking point. In interviews today, he’s been repeating the claim that Karl Rove was ‘exonerated’ by this morning’s New York Times, purportedly because Rove was first given Valerie Plame’s name by a journalist. Here’s Mehlman on CNN today:

“What this [NYT] story shows you, again, in my judgment, exonerates Karl Rove. What it says is Karl Rove wasn’t the leaker, he was actually the recipient of the information, not the provider.”

But we don’t actually know that Rove learned of Plame’s name from a journalist. See this quote (noted by Salon.com’s War Room) from a source close to the investagation, in this morning’s Washington Post:

“I don’t think that [Rove] has a clear recollection,” the lawyer said. “He’s told them that he believes he may have heard it from a journalist.”

Talk about parsing…

As if Arnold needs more pumping up. In the wake of the muscle magazine controversy, the Governor’s spokeswoman, Margita Thompson, has claimed that Schwarzenegger’s association with American Media (the publishing company which owns the magazines) represents no conflict of interest. Apparently Thompson forgot that the Governor’s paycheck comes from advertising revenues, and the magazines frequently feature ads for dietary supplements. Or maybe she missed that other tiny detail: last year the Terminator vetoed a bill that would have placed government regulations on – you guessed it – dietary supplements.

Needless to say, the arrangement is an interesting coincidence. And a profitable one at that. The Governor’s contract calls for him to receive 1% of the magazines’ per year for five years — a sum which could total upwards of five million dollars. To say that Schwarzenegger’s association with American Media isn’t a conflict of interest is more than naƒ¯ve — it’s just plain stupid.

– Grant Ginder

Was Ari Fleischer the second leaker?

On Wednesday, we laid out the evidence suggesting grand jury investigators may believe he is. Now this, from the New York Daily News (via Carpetbagger):

Along with Bush political guru Karl Rove, the grand jury is investigating what role, if any, ex-White House mouthpiece Ari Fleischer may have played in the revelation that the former covert operative Plame was married to former Ambassador Joe Wilson.

“Ari’s name keeps popping up,” said one source familiar with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s probe.

Another source close to the probe added there is renewed interest in Fleischer, “based on Fitzgerald’s questions.”

Small observation. The story being spun by Rove’s surrogates this morning is totally inconsistent with the facts.

On Fox and Friends this morning, former Rove deputy Ken Mehlman said:

One article last weekend was an article in Newsweek, which I thought exonerated Karl Rove in many ways. What it said was Karl Rove was not leaking anybody’s name, he didn’t know that name.

That’s not true. The Newsweek article recounts a conversation between Rove and Time reporter Matt Cooper on July 11, 2003. According to the New York Times (which Mehlman also claims “exonerates” Rove), Rove had a conversation with Robert Novak on July 8, 2003. Here is what happened during that conversation:

Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.

After hearing Mr. Novak’s account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: “I heard that, too.”

So, at a minimum, Rove knew Valerie Plame’s name no later than July 8. This is significant because everything we’ve heard from Rove and his surrogates for the last two years about this case has been a lie. And they haven’t stopped.