I don't believe President Bush will fire Karl Rove. But, David Corn makes a good argument for why he should.

He leaked national security information as part of a fierce campaign to undermine Wilson, who had criticized the White House on the war on Iraq. Rove's overworked attorney, Robert Luskin, defends his client by arguing that Rove never revealed the name of Valerie Plame/Wilson to Cooper and that he only referred to her as Wilson's wife. This is not much of a defense. If Cooper or any other journalist had written that "Wilson's wife works for the CIA"--without mentioning her name--such a disclosure could have been expected to have the same effect as if her name had been used: Valerie Wilson would have been compromised, her anti-WMD work placed at risk, and national security potentially harmed.

Either Rove knew that he was revealing an undercover officer to a reporter or he was identifying a CIA officer without bothering to check on her status and without considering the consequences of outing her. Take your pick: in both scenarios Rove is acting in a reckless and cavalier fashion, ignoring the national security interests of the nation to score a political point against a policy foe.

I don't think that whether Plame was undercover at the time of the leak is the determinative issue. I think the question is whether the U.S. would have wanted to protect her identity because of her past or present covert status. At this hearing (pdf) of the Democratic Policy Committee in October, 2003, three current and former CIA Agents emphatically and repeatedly answer that question in the affirmative.

As Corn says, at best, Rove was reckless or cavalier. Others have said Rove probably didn't know about the law prohibiting disclosure. If true, that in itself suggests he shouldn't be privy to classified information or occupy such a senior position in the Administration.