The big news of the day, which we blogged about earlier, is Scooter Libby’s testimony that President Bush himself authorized the leak of a classified NIE. MORE »

The interwebs are abuzz with the story of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame’s five year old son, who, in an adorable display of his lack of media savvy, gushed to a reporter, “My daddy’s famous, my mommy’s a secret spy,” as the Yellowcake clan headed out on vacation to an “undisclosed location.” MORE »

How could we have missed this in last night’s Larry King interview with Bob Woodward? Speaking of what happened after he realized he had a — ah — “piece” of something regarding the Plame case, he told Larry, “And all of the juices, my wife Elsa told me this is you could almost just almost hear it the reporting news juices running.” MORE »

• “For the sake of a new book, Woodward has evidently been willing to protect the American public from various revelations about a government intent on destroying the republic. What a difference a few decades make.” [Mother Jones]
• Jeff Toobin says the only thing that can help the White House with PlameGate is if “the whole thing just goes away and people forget about it. That’s not going to happen.” [CNN]
• Gives a whole new meaning to “probes”: “If [reporters] keep going into the secret world they can come under the gravitational pull of another planet– the people in power, the secret-makers themselves. They’re still sending back their reports, but have ‘left’ our universe, so to speak.” Bob’s become an alien. [WashingtonPost.com]
• Walter Pincus’s refusal to back Woodward’s story makes Bob glum: “I did tell him; we have different memories,” Woodward said, his voice sounding sad and hurt. [VV]

• Plamegate, the opera: “Patrick Fitzgerald kicks things off with ‘Tell me a story,’ followed by the trio with Judith Miller and Matt Cooper ‘I’ve got a subpoena.’ Cooper then has his show stopping duet with Time editor Norman Pearlstine, ‘We’ve run out of options,’ followed by his aria ‘I have been released.’” [Living in a Media World]
• Says Maureen Dowd: “The New York Times is the most fun you can have for a dollar.” She’s even cheaper than we thought. [Daily Texan via Romenesko]
• Anonymity for me but not for thee: Posties bitch about leaks from within the paper. [FishbowlDC]
• Real life: “Free Speech Coalition Files Lawsuit Challenging Utah’s ‘Anti-Spam’ Registry;” the Onion: “Anti-Spam Legislation Opposed By Powerful Penis-Enlargement Lobby” [US Newswire, Onion]
• Red Cross president: “Some people would come home and have a martini. I do beading.” [WP]

AP reports that Dick Cheney was not the anonymous source who told Bob Woodward Valerie Plame’s identity, according to an anonymous source. Jeez, those guys sure can keep a secret. Now. MORE »

Bloggers are beside themselves over Bob Woodward’s revelation that he was told by a “senior administration official” who Valerie Plame was nearly a month before Bob Novak first identified her in his column. There are many theories as to why Woodward would come forth with this information at this time. Kevin Drum theorizes that the blockbuster article comes only because the SAO tipped his hand to Patrick Fitzgerald: “Perhaps Mr. X is a cooperating witness, or perhaps he’s someone who started to feel some heat and decided to come forward because he got scared.” We have another theory: Bob Woodward had not been on television in the last week or so. MORE »

Judith Miller “said that in the few hours since her departure had been made public, she had received several offers ‘of all kinds’ for future employment, which she declined to specify.” — NYT, 11/10/05 MORE »

There’s been a lot talk lately about whether or not Bush should fire Karl Rove in an effort to stop his precipitous slide down into approval rating hell. (Also it would be what he promised to do.) Say he does — what then? How do you get people to fall back in love with a White House that’s grown distant, cold and ugly? MORE »

• “Is redemption available to everyone in Washington today? Absolutely yes,” said Joe Lockhart. Whew. [NYT]
• Stephen Hadley on Scooter: “I will miss him as a colleague and as a friend.” We know, we know… his laugh, his little habit of straightening my tie, his adorable ability to smear administration enemies… [Fox]
• Is that a handkerchief in the President’s pocket or is he just not happy to see me? [AP]
• Arianna goes all weak in the knees for Chris Matthews’s Hardball. [HuffPo]
• Anthony Williams to sign change in DC “zero tolerance” DUI law! Now: .05 tolerance! Have another round, kids. [NBC4]
• Hey, ya think John McCain’s running for President in ‘08? [StraightTalkAmerica.com]

From this afternoon’s Los Angeles Times (click for full page):