NYTimes puts it straight

A Few Thoughts on Karl Rove - New York Times:

Far be it for us to denounce leaks. Newspapers have relied on countless government officials to divulge vital information that their bosses want to be kept secret. There is even value in the sanctioned leak, such as when the White House, say, lets out information that it wants known but does not want to announce.

But it is something else entirely when officials peddle disinformation for propaganda purposes or to harm a political adversary. And Karl Rove seems to have been playing that unsavory game with the C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, a career diplomat who ran afoul of President Bush's efforts to justify the invasion of Iraq.
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Mr. Cooper's e-mail note does not say that Mr. Rove mentioned the name of Mr. Wilson's wife, which later appeared in a column by Robert Novak. White House supporters are emphasizing that fact in an effort to argue that Mr. Rove did not illegally unmask a covert officer. We don't need to judge that here. But there remains the issue of whether the White House used Mr. Wilson's wife for political reasons, and it's obvious that Mr. Rove did.

The White House has painted itself into a corner. More than a year ago, Mr. Bush vowed to fire the leaker. Then Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman, repeatedly assured everyone that the leaker was not Mr. Rove, on whom the president is so dependent intellectually that he calls Mr. Rove "the architect."
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Mr. Rove could clear all this up quickly. All he has to do is call a press conference and tell everyone what conversations he had and with whom. While we like government officials who are willing to whisper vital information, we like even more government officials who tell the truth in public.

Amen.