Rove/Plame: White House, press corps play 61 questions

In Drudge-talk, the grand jury investigation of the Valerie Plame leak is "developing hard." This morning, during an Oval Office photo op, GWB ignored a direct question about whether he would fire Rove. And an AP wire story notes that Bush press secretary Scott McClellan faced a total of 61 questions about Karl Rove and the Plame case in two press briefings yesterday (though that detail is missing from the version of the AP story cobbled together by the conservative political editors at the Strib). The lede of Richard Stevenson's New York Times story captures the state of siege at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue:

Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer would be fired, and assuring that Karl Rove and other senior aides to President Bush had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House on Monday refused to answer any questions about new evidence of Mr. Rove's role in the matter. [Read the rest.]

Only one of the Monday press briefings is posted at the White House website. Here it is.