TOM MAGUIRE continues his relentless dissection of Plame coverage. Meanwhile, on the question of why the White House cared what Joe Wilson was writing in the Times, Mickey Kaus observes:

Isn’t it possible the White House was extremely alarmed by Wilson’s covert (and then overt) appearances on the NYT op-ed page because Cheney, Libby, et. al. were operating under the outdated impression that the NYT op-ed page was where the fate of men and policies gets decided–i.e. that it was still overbearingly influential? [You mean …–ed Yes! If TimesSelect had been in place in 2003 this whole scandal would have been avoided.]

Heh.