Someone is talking to the NY Daily News, and they aren’t very happy with Karl Rove. He made Bushie look bad, and that is simply unacceptable. The fact that he may have broken the law in doing so doesn’t seem to have registered with the Daily News’ source, but that it may rebound on the Preznit is clearly a big no no in Bushworld.

According to the Daily News, the Preznit took Karl to the woodshed when he learned of his involvement in Traitorgate two years ago. Funny that we are just hearing about that now, since the Preznit’s poll numbers are in free fall — guess that whole loyalty thing goes out the window when someone starts to make you look bad, doesn’t it?

“He made his displeasure known to Karl,” a presidential counselor told The News. “He made his life miserable about this.”

Of course, not miserable enough to pull his security clearance. Not miserable enough to follow through with his public promise to fire anyone who leaked information. Guess that whole “my word is my bond” thing has a few caveats in Bushworld. According to the Daily News, Bush has “circled the wagons” around Rove — not enough to prevent someone high on his staff from stabbing him in the back on background, but hey, who’s keeping track of that?

Asked if he believed indictments were forthcoming, a key Bush official said he did not know, then added: “I’m very concerned it could go very, very badly.”

“Karl is fighting for his life,” the official added, “but anything he did was done to help George W. Bush. The President knows that and appreciates that.”

Wow, how appreciative. Here’s your gold watch, thanks heaps, by the way, someone will be saying publicly that you have to go, don’t take it personally. Thanks for doing all my dirty work over the years, now get the hell out, you’re making me look bad.

Bush has always known that Rove often talks with reporters anonymously and he generally approved of such contacts, one source said.

But the President felt Rove and other members of the White House damage-control team did a clumsy job in their campaign to discredit Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson…

Gee, ya think? A bad job — wow, who knew outing a CIA NOC for payback against her husband was “a bad job.” Clearly they should have just roughed him up or something, can’t have people airing factual differences with anything the Administration says without some form of payback, now can we? But the rats can’t even get their stories straight these days, as they scurry for cover before Hurricane Patrick hits the White House. (Andy? Dan? Is that you?)

A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.

“Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way,” the source said.

Bush-league? Man, was that a poor choice of words! Running like rats from a sinking ship, and the indictments haven’t even hit yet.

(Major graphics love to Dubyasworld.)

UPDATE: Hotline Blog has posted a list of everyone who has been interviewed and/or testified in Traitorgate. Just for fun and speculation, take a peek. It’s an illuminating list. (Hat tip to Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo for highlighting this list.)

UPDATE #2: Reuters is reporting that Congressional Democrats are now asking when, exactly, the President learned that Rove had any involvement in this matter. And what, if any, information he gave about that conversation to Patrick Fitzgerald. So far, it’s a “no comment” from Scott McClellan.