President George W. Bush’s chief political adviser and the “architect” of his political career, Karl ‘Turd Blossom’ Rove, escaped indictment in the Valerie Plame-Wilson CIA leak case, according a statement by his lawyer.

Attorney Robert Luskin said he heard the news from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald on Monday. The news ends months of speculation about Rove’s fate in the case, fed most recently by a story that originated on the left-leaning, non-profit news Web site Truthout in a story written by Jason Leopold.

The announcement cheered Republicans and a White House beleaguered by war and low approval ratings, according to the Associated Press.

Fitzgerald has already secured a criminal indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and the investigation continues into whether senior Bush administration officials intentionally leaked the identity of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame-Wilson in retribution because her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sharply criticized the administration’s pursuit of war in Iraq, first in a New York Times opinion column.

Rove testified five times before a grand jury, most recently in April. He has admitted speaking with columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper in the days before they published Plame’s name in July 2003. He did not originally tell prosecutors about his conversation with Cooper, only revealing it after his lawyer discovered a White House e-mail that referred to it, according to the AP.

While Republicans are going to express relief all day long today on cable television news shows, Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean remained on the attack against Rove on NBC’s “Today Show.”

“He doesn’t belong in the White House,” Dean said. “If the president valued America more than he valued his connection to Karl Rove, Karl Rove would have been fired a long time ago. So I think this is probably good news for the White House, but it’s not very good news for America.”

The best we can tell from monitoring the news wires and cable news on Monday, no mainstream news outlet is ready to confirm yet that President George W. Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, is about to be indicted, as reported by the left-leaning non-profit Web site Truthout on Saturday.

The Associated Press moved a story a few minutes ago basically giving Rove a blowjob by talking about his smile. Do they know something we don’t? If so, we would love to see it reported in full.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews appeared on Don Imus’ show this morning and said Karl Rove could be indicted today, according to the Think Progress blog.

Transcript:

MATTHEWS: If, however, something happens with Karl Rove, we’re going to go to general quarters around here.

IMUS: What does that mean?

MATTHEWS: Meaning we will be taping probably on Saturday or late night because everything will change. Last time, when he picked up Scooter, when he nailed him 30 years of charges, that happened on 1:00 on a Friday. So we don’t know when it might happen, if it’s going happen.

IMUS: Are we expecting something with Karl Rove today?

MATTHEWS: Well, it could be today. It could be next week. Everybody is buzzing about when or if. It’s a big if, big when. There is a lot of talk because he is still being interviewing by the special prosecutor. He keeps being hauled before the grand jury. So something is going on here with the special prosecutor. We don’t know whether he is going to clear him or nail him.

Last night, Matthews reported that the grand jury is meeting today.

Raw Story reports that networks are staking out the courthouse.

Despite vehement denials by his attorney who said this week that Karl Rove is neither a “target” nor in danger of being indicted in the CIA leak case, the special counsel leading the investigation has already written up charges against Rove, and a grand jury is expected to vote on whether to indict the Deputy White House Chief of Staff sometime next week, sources knowledgeable about the probe said Friday afternoon, according to Truthout, an independent liberal news service.

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