Rove "outted" a conspiracy by a political enemy of the president to discredit intel on the eve of war.
Imagine the reaction to a pre-Pearl Harbor Julius and Ethel Rosenberg-type couple working for the state department, claiming the Russians weren't trying to come up with a nuclear bomb---oh, um, bad example. ;)
Imagine the reaction to a pre-Pearl Harbor Plame and Wilson-type couple of Republicans working for the defense department, claiming the Nazis weren't planning on attacking their European neighbors. Would the NYT be attacking the FDR Administration, or the couple?
Remember when left wing extremists exposed REAL covert, undercover CIA agents, and those agents were killed? The demoncrats celebrated the exposer (Ellsberg, et al) as heroes, as the dead agents as deservedly dead?