It has been widely reported that Rove’s legal troubles center around his initial failure to tell prosecutors about his conversation with TIME Magazine’s Matt Cooper regarding Joe Wilson’s wife. In a new story, Murray Waas reports that Rove could also be in legal jeopardy based on the substance of what he said about his conversation with Cooper once he acknowledged it occurred. Here’s the critical point:

Rove testified to the grand jury that when he told Cooper that Plame worked at the agency, he was only passing along unverified gossip, according to people familiar with his testimony.

In contrast, Cooper has testified that Rove told him in a phone conversation on July 11, 2003, that Plame worked for the CIA and played a role in having the agency select her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, to make a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002.

Cooper has also testified that Rove, as well as a second source — I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, then-chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney — portrayed the information about Plame as accurate and authoritative.

So there is a big difference between Rove’s version of the story and Cooper’s version of the story. If Fitzgerald establishes that Rove is the one not telling the truth, it could potentially form the basis of perjury or obstruction of justice charges against Rove.

In short: Rove’s in even more trouble than we thought.

on prescription fraud charges, Palm Beach County authorities tell CBS News.

UPDATE: Sun-Sentinel has more.

TPM Muckraker digs into reports that Goss may be implicated in the “free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes” provided by corrupt defense contractors. “This is horribly irresponsible. He hasn’t even been to the Watergate in decades,” a CIA spokeswoman said. “When I asked if Goss had attended Wilkes’ parties at the Westin or other locations, [she] repeated the denial. ‘It’s horribly irresponsible. Flatly untrue.‘”

In September 2002, when the price of gas was $1.40 per gallon, White House senior economic adviser Laurence Lindsey predicted regime change in Iraq would lower oil prices:

As for the impact of a war with Iraq, “It depends how the war goes.” But [Bush senior economic adviser Laurence Lindsey] quickly adds that that “Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits that would come from a successful prosecution of the war.”

“The key issue is oil, and a regime change in Iraq would facilitate an increase in world oil,” which would drive down oil prices, giving the U.S. economy an added boost.

Today, with the price of gas now around $2.91 per gallon, the Associated Press reports that the Iraq war has contributed to high oil prices:

With oil prices above $70 a barrel fouling the world economy, dismay is focusing on Iraq, whose exports have slipped to their lowest levels since the 2003 invasion.

”Iraq could be making a tremendous difference,” said Dalton Garis, an economist at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. Instead, its shortfall is ”a significant contributing factor to the high price of oil,” he said.

Last night of the Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert sliced and diced prominent neo-conservative Bill Kristol on the Project For the New American Century, Iraq and Iran. Watch an excerpt:

Our favorite part:

COLBERT: How’s the New American Century? Looks good to me, right?

KRISTOL: I think it, I”¦I’m speechless.

COLBERT: Really?

KRISTOL: Yeah, we’ve sort of, the Project for a New American Century, we’re one of the few people”¦

COLBERT: Come on, it’s a terrific New American Century, right?

KRISTOL: Well, I think we’re doing ok.

We’ve posted the full transcript of the clip HERE.

and led away from the Sudanese Embassy in plastic handcuffs Friday in protest of the Sudanese government’s role in atrocities in the Darfur region. ‘The slaughter of the people of Darfur must end,’ Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), a Holocaust survivor…, said from the embassy steps before his arrest.”

UPDATE: PoliticsTV was on the scene. Watch the video.

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI is “investigating whether two contractors implicated in the bribery of former Rep. Randall ‘Duke’ Cunningham supplied him with prostitutes and free use of a limousine and hotel suites.” The Journal also said the investigators are exploring “whether any other members of Congress” are involved.

Last night on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, Dean Calbreath of the San Diego Union Tribune – which recently won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Cunningham case – said that “as many as a half a dozen” members of Congress could ultimately be implicated in the prostitution scandal. Watch it:

UPDATE: More on the scandal at DailyKos.

UPDATE II: Even more at TPMMuckraker.

Transcript: Read more