Much attention was paid yesterday to the introduction of Bush capo Karl Rove as the villain behind Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s legal predicament. A Google News search for the names of the two men returned some 1500 results (and counting). But don’t be fooled: Libby v. Rove is a sideshow aimed at diverting the jury’s attention from the central question in the case: whether or not Libby deliberately lied to investigators and the grand jury about his role in outing former covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson as the president and vice president scrambled to defend themselves against allegations from her husband that the White House knowingly misled the country about the strength of their case against Saddam Hussein prior to the invasion of Iraq.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald made clear that he intends to show that Libby learned Wilson’s name and occupation from his boss, Dick Cheney. The reason Fitzgerald regards the Libby-Cheney connection as central is that Libby’s defense relies on the claim that Libby was too busy to recall conversations he had about Plame with the reporters and at least one former White House official — the now immunized Ari Fleischer — who will testify during the trial. Fitzgerald hopes to show that Libby was unlikely to forget those conversations because they took place over the space of a few days at the behest of the vice president.

Rove may well have attempted to place Libby in the prosecutor’s crosshairs; no one will be arguing that throwing Libby from the train is something that Rove wouldn’t do to save himself or protect his boss. That doesn’t mean Libby didn’t belong in the crosshairs; unless Ted Wells, Libby’s attorney, can prove that Rove manipulated the testimony of the prosecution witnesses, the alleged Rove-Libby feud is likely to prove at most tangential to the case.

Nor is the relationship between the two men likely to affect Rove’s tenure at the White House. Despite president Bush’s promise to fire any White House official found to have been involved in the leak — later amended to fire anyone convicted of a crime in connection with the leak, after Rove’s role was revealed — Rove remains comfortably ensconced there. If the November electoral disaster wasn’t enough to dislodge him, any additional dirt arising from the trial probably won’t be either.

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