I agree, that is the legal question. It is not the same question to place an ethical or moral judgement on Rove's actions. I know we don't want to impose that standard on the issue, just on the democrats.
Let's say that some identical political flap started at the Agriculture Dept. instead of the CIA. Is there an "ethical" problem there?
What drives me nuts in the first place is the entire issue is over nothing. The CIA knew at the time, even before Wilson was sent, that the "Nigeria Memo" was a fake (forged by the French intelligence BTW designed to be easily identified as fake) and that Bush was not relying on that memo for his famous 18 words in the SOTU speech. Joe Wilson either didn't understand that or he was just playing raw politics in his tell-all "Article".