Is Rove Being Kept in Place to Protect Someone Higher Up?

David Sirota offers some interesting speculation (and yes, speculation) about why Rove is being kept on, namely that there is some evidence to believe he's there to deflect interest in someone higher up the Bushie food chain (and let's face it, there aren't too many higher except that perhaps in a Bush hierarchy, his brain might not get quite the attention it would with anyone else).

You have to go here to read it all, but here's a taste:

I am not one who likes to engage in a lot of speculation, but the Karl Rove/leak scandal has really gotten me thinking: why won't they just fire Rove? The answer is not that Rove is innocent, or even that they can't because he's too powerful - I'm starting to think the reason is because while Rove was definitely involved and definitely deserves to face legal consequnces, he wasn't the root. Somebody else was the root of this leak - and that somebody is likely a person the Bush administration can't just cut loose like they could even Rove, who is after all, a staffer. It must be somebody even higher up on the food chain.

Before I tell you who I think it might be, let's just go through what we know. Rove now admits he learned of the classified information from a journalist (which of course does not excuse him from going and confirming that information to another "journalist" like Bob Novak). It's very possible that person was Judith Miller, but that's not really important - what is important is that the journalist got the information from someone else...someone higher up.