Rove Must Go

The People Paper weighs in:

AS DEPUTY Chief of Staff for the Bush administration, Karl Rove is a high-ranking White House official, privy to a number of classified documents and state secrets.

It's now clear that Rove, President Bush's chief political street fighter, can't be trusted with the nation's secrets. Not when a cheap political attack can be made.

As Newsweek reports and his attorney now acknowledges, Rove revealed to reporters that the wife of former ambassador and Bush critic Joe Wilson was a CIA agent. Wilson was sent to Nigeria to determine if Iraq had attempted to buy nuclear material. When Wilson could find no proof, he accused the Bush White House of leading the nation to war on false pretenses. Rove then outed Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, in an attempt to discredit Wilson.

The White House has now been caught in a major lie. For two years White House officials have denied that Rove was the source of the leak. At one point spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush would fire any White House employees if they had leaked the name, which is a federal crime.

There is no easy way to explain this away. And the White House shouldn't even try. Rove must go.