The political damage may already have been done to Bush’s key man

The US media is struggling to reconcile two cherished values. One is the idea that journalists must not be forced to reveal their sources. The other is much less noble, but no less cherished: get Bush.

Or, more accurately, get Karl Rove, the man on whom the president most depends.

At the moment, the 'get Bush' urge is winning. Which is not surprising because, to left-wing liberal journalists, Rove represents everything they loathe in the Bush administration.

Bush calls Rove 'turd blossom' (a Texan word for a flower that blooms from cattle dung). It's an apt title for the man who helped Bush rise from the hazy world of the Texan bar stool to the power and dignity of the White House. The nickname also indicates that Bush sees his adviser as something of a rough diamond. Rove is the man who masterminded Bush's re-election in 2004 by building up a volunteer network of more than 300,000 people.

But he's also the man who derides liberals for wanting "to offer therapy and understanding" to terrorists. Rove told Fox News recently: "In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban. In the wake of 9/11, liberals believed it was time to submit a petition."

This no-holds-barred invective sums up Rove in the liberal mind. But they also fear his power. Bush is stupid, and so there must be a shadowy handler. That's their thesis, and it's the inspiration for at least one book, Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W Bush Presidential, by James C Moore and Wayne Slater.

Although the theory underestimates the president's own will to power and political brain, Rove's role is central. He became the first "permanent consultant" to a president of the United States, carrying his power intact, as one commentator put it, "from the campaign bus to the White House".

The Republicans now control the presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives. And Bush could make a clean sweep by reshaping the US Supreme Court along conservative lines. Already, the battle-lines are being drawn over the president's nomination of judge John Roberts to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Chief Justice William H Rehnquist is terminally ill and soon there may be a second nomination.

Rove is a key man in helping Bush avoid damaging controversy in his choice of appointments, but also in winning over public opinion to support the president's eventual nominee.

But Rove's opponents now have a glorious opportunity to topple him. The resulting controversy has all the dirt and complexity of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, with each side engaging in highly legalistic arguments, and complicated time-lines about who knew what, said what, and when.

Meet Joe Wilson, the man sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 on a mission to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein had been trying to acquire uranium to make weapons of mass destruction.

Wilson reported back in June 2002 and Bush, in his state of the union address in 2003, made reference to Saddam's Niger adventure.

But in the summer of 2003, Wilson wrote an article for the New York Times stating that his trip had uncovered no evidence that Saddam had acquired uranium.

The White House sought to damage Wilson's credibility by leaking information on how he got the trip to Niger in the first place. Journalists were told that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative and had lobbied for Wilson to get the mission. And Karl Rove was one of the figures talking to the journalists.

As it turned out, the White House spin doctors were sailing dangerously close to illegality. President George Bush senior had made it a criminal offence, attracting 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine, to expose a CIA operative where the disclosure is made intentionally about someone known to be a covert agent.

Is Rove in the frame? The crime seems too tightly defined for there to be any real prospect that he will go to jail. Firstly, it is not clear that Rove was the man who outed Wilson's wife to the media, although he confirmed her existence and role indirectly in a conversation with journalist Robert Novak before the story went public.

It seems there was at least one other White House official who had mentioned the Plame connection beforehand. Rove claims that he himself learned of the husband-wife Niger link from another journalist. That may be New York Times reporter Judith Miller, jailed on July 6 for refusing to tell the grand jury investigating the affair which sources in the Bush administration revealed the identity of the CIA agent.

More crucially, Rove may claim that he did not know Plame was operating undercover for the CIA. And he will argue that his motive, in talking about Plame's role, was not to expose her. He was simply out to convince journalists that there remained some truth in the Niger uranium story, by portraying Joe Wilson as less than a competent honest broker.

But it's not just the White House officials who were spinning. So were the media. At first, the journalists wanted to protect their sources, so they made an elaborate case to a federal court that no crime could have been committed by Rove, or anyone else, because, they claimed, the CIA had itself blown Plame's cover before anyone in the administration spoke to journalists about it. Now that the prospect of getting Rove seems more juicy, the media seems less concerned about protecting its sources.

Joe Wilson has been accused of both spinning and fibbing. Why did his wife lobby for him to get the Niger trip when that could only complicate her role as a CIA operative? Was this a politically motivated attempt to discredit the Bush administration's claims about Niger claims Plame herself had called "crazy"? And why did Wilson repeatedly deny any involvement on his wife's part in getting him the Niger trip a denial which ultimately damaged his credibility before the Senate investigation committee.

Interestingly, there have been few references in the media's coverage of the story to Wilson's partisan attitude to Bush's foreign policy, and no acknowledgement that what Rove said about Wilson and Plame was factually correct.

The game plan, after all, is to take out Bush's key man. And it may work. Even if he has committed no crime, Rove may have to leave the White House for the same reason Alastair Campbell had to leave Tony Blair's side. The negative association, the aura of spin and manipulation, may be too damaging for the main man.

Can the Bush administration function effectively without Rove? Or will the president's reputed loyalty to his staff keep Rove in the job? A lot will depend on how long the controversy lasts.

Bush may remove Rove from public view while continuing to avail of his services privately. Or, as one official put it: "To get the benefit of the brain without the proximity of the body."