Forensic Blogging

John Podhoretz at NRO interprets this story about supposed internal debates about Karl Rove as a hit piece launched by White House press secretary Scott McClellan or his allies. Good for Scott to learn he has some.

Podhoretz:

The essence of the story is that Karl Rove needs to go because he's made life difficult for McClellan. You have to figure, therefore, that the story was leaked or sanctioned by McClellan, a fact that is telegraphed clumsily by a series of pro-McClellan sentences. "Many mid-level staffers inside have expressed frustration that press secretary Scott McClellan's credibility was undermined by Rove, who told the spokesman that he was not involved in the leak....'That is affecting everybody,' said a Republican who has discussed the issue with the White House. 'Scott personally is really beaten down by this. Everybody I talked to talks about this.'"

This is the first time ever that a sympathetic word has been published about Scott McClellan, which is tipoff #1 that the story derives from him or his friends. Tipoff #2 is the idea that what's affecting the White House is less the whole leak affair than its effect on Scott McClellan. Yes, I'm sure people are wandering the halls of the Old Executive Office Building, murmuring to each other, "I just can't get any work done because of what's happened to Scott!"