Karl Rove's missing e-mail

This story is getting more and more interesting. And, in its own way, more and more Watergate-like (no, I'm not going there... not yet...). Now, according to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is looking at an e-mail written by (possible liar) Karl Rove to Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley shortly after the former's conversation with Time's Matt Cooper on July 11, 2003:

The White House's handling of a potentially crucial e-mail sent by senior aide Karl Rove two years ago set off a chain of events that has led special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to summon Rove for a fourth grand jury appearance this week. His return has created heightened concern among White House officials and their allies that Fitzgerald may be preparing to bring indictments when a federal grand jury that has been investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity expires at the end of October.

What we're talking about are "discrepancies in testimony between Rove and Time reporter Matt Cooper about their conversation". In other words, someone's lying. Guess who?

Oh, then there's a notebook that just turned up at the Times's Washington bureau, prompting Fitzgerald to summon Judith Miller back before the grand jury.

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Around the blogosphere:

AMERICAblog calls Rove "a conniving political mastermind" and "Mr. Sleazy Smarty Pants": "Rove was probably so used to lying to reporters... who never called him on it... that he thought he could get away with lying to anyone."

Donklephant (one of our favourites) calls it like it is: "a mess".

Think Progress weighs in with the details, but see all the comments (mostly from the left).

Needlenose addresses Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin's dubious account of discovering the conveniently forgotten e-mail.

The Stakeholder, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's blog, is similarly skeptical.

The Next Hurrah has a long post on Judith Miller and what she might have been working on back in July 2003. Definitely worth checking out.

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See also this account from AP: "After mentioning a CIA operative to a reporter, Bush confidant Karl Rove alerted the president's No. 2 security adviser about the interview and said he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations the operative's husband was making about faulty Iraq intelligence. The July 11, 2003, e-mail between Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is the first showing an intelligence official knew Rove had talked to Matthew Cooper just days before the Time magazine reporter wrote an article identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA officer."

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Which brings me to this key question: What did the president know, and when did he know it?