I'm sure that they would love that.
Except that he didn't do that. He answered a question about who had authorized the Joe Wilson trip. Rove responded that it wasn't DCIA Tenet or Dick Cheney, as Wilson claimed. He simply said, "Wilson's wife works at CIA and he believed that she may have arranged the trip", which it turns out to be absolutely the case as she, indeed, recommended and pushed for her husband to take the trip.
At no point did Rove mention Valerie Plame's name. Further, there is no intention when you answer a "who arranged a trip?" question, but don't include the name. The only thing that you could say is that Rove INTENTIONALLY DID NOT mention Valerie Plames name.
If a report (Bob Novak) calls the CIA and verifies that a) Joe Wilson's wife does work at CIA, b) that her name is Valerie Plame (which was actually published by Wilson himself in at least 3 places on the Internet...of all places), and that c) he was going to publish the name, to wit CIA didn't request that her name be excluded, a request that Novak himself said he would have honored if CIA would have indicated that she was a "sensitive" source.
And, it really was a set-up from the word go. Read FREEPER Wolfstars post: Set up? Anatomy of the contrived Wilson "scandal".
The demoCREEPS, aided by their friends in the mainstream press, have seized on the now-infamous "16 words" as a way to create friction for Bush, specifically, and Rove, in general.
This really is the mother-of-all-BS-media stories.
BTW, isn't it interesting how the DUmmies are all of a sudden so concerned with the health and well-being of our intelligence officers? So much for the CIA lying about WMD.