Karl Rover, Come Over (to the courthouse)

The Libby trial is living up to expectations:

White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials—including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett-may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial of Lewis (Scooter) Libby.

Both Rove and Bartlett have already received trial subpoenas from Libby’s defense lawyers, according to lawyers close to the case who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters. While that is no guarantee they will be called, the odds increased this week after Libby’s lawyer, Ted Wells, laid out a defense resting on the idea that his client, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, had been made a “scapegoat” to protect Rove.

Honestly, I think this is why you've seen so many stories this week of the top guys blowing their stack, whether it's Cheney yelling at Blitzer, or Bush's "I'm the decision-maker," or his telling Nancy Pelosi that the Iraq plan will work "because it's got to work, dammit!"

PELOSI: He's tried this two times — it's failed twice. I asked him at the White House, 'Mr. President, why do you think this time it's going to work?'

BUSH: Because I told them it had to.

PELOSI: Why didn't you tell them that the other two times?

They're scared to death and they're taking it out by yelling and screaming. Remember, Watergate was a simple burglary, it didn't begin with anything that would appear anywhere but on the police blotter in the back of the paper.