Why the hostility? There are hucksters of every political stripe. Apologists as well.

Why would anyone lie knowing that he'd be caught at it and damage his reputation?

Do you think White House aide Karl Rove will be indicted? I don't know, and even if I did, I wouldn't say because it would be unfair to him. The difficulty of these stories is being fair to people under investigation. One of the things I learned from the so-called Clinton scandals is there's a lot of hyperventilation, a lot of baseless allegations, and an assumption in Washington that being under investigation is a presumption of guilt.

You also have to keep in mind that some people are pathologoical liars

Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste

"I believe Karl is Bush. They're not separate, each of them freestanding, with distinct agendas, as some people say."
--William Kristol

For example, if Rove is co-operating, perhaps in order to throw Cheney from the train to save his boss... wouldn't Luskin actually need to do more than just no-comment, to protect that process? He'd need to lie. He might even need to throw an investigative reporter off the scent. Far fetched, I know, because Luskin has never engaged in a lie of this magnitude so far, preferring sophistry. But with all that is going on in the press this last few days, there is no way that Bush could survive a Rove indictment.

I am amazed that the blogosphere would lend credence to the statements of people who have consistently lied about Rove's role in this case. This is a White House that denied Rove's involvement in the leak. This is a White House that has lied and lied and lied. And yet the first question that people ask is "why would Rove's spokesman lie?" Because they can, because they do, and because they have. This is an administration that has attacked and discredited their detractors. I am amazed that not a single reporter would actually do any real investigative work and get to the bottom of this story. Surely, their must be another intrepid reporter out there that has sources beyond a spokesman. Jason Leopold

But, listen... you people of the press type those decisions down... Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction! Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? Stephen Colbert

Rove - not indicted, not out on bail, and wearing a business suit, not orange prison garb -- was in person at the right-wing think tank, American Enterprise Institute Monday morning. ... If Rove is indicted soon, as some Democrats hope and expect, then this may have been Rove's valedictory message and the essence of it was: things are better than you, especially you in the mainstream news media, think. ... "we're going to be just fine in the fall elections and we're going to be fine because we stand for things that are important to stand for: a strong national defense and victory, complete victory in the war on terror.... Tax cuts, free trade, fiscal restraint in the budget process."

In regular West Wing breakfast sessions catered by the White House mess, Rove and the White House political director, Sara Taylor, have already been reaching out to nervous and vulnerable Republican members of Congress, three at a time, to offer advice or to lay out an emerging, three-prong attack on Democrats over national security, taxes and health care.

And if its his sources who are lying to him, then I will want to know the same thing from him that I want to know from traditional journalists: How did he let himself get played?