On Capitol Hill, the White House refused for a second day to answer questions about Karl Rove’s involvement in the outing of an undercover CIA operative. Several of the top leaders of the Democratic Party–including Senator John Kerry and Hillary Clinton — called on President Bush to fire Rove who is his top advisor. The Republican National Committee has come to Rove’s defense. The party issued talking points to Republican operatives that described the scandal as a “blatant partisan political attack on Rove.” The talking points defended Rove’s actions by claiming he was “attempting to advise a reporter about potential inaccuracies in a story that he was writing.” On Sunday Newsweek revealed that Rove personally spoke with a reporter from Time Magazine about the undercover operative — Valerie Plame — although he did not state her name. Plame was outed as an undercover CIA operative just days after Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, publicly revealed that the Bush administration had lied when it claimed that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger. We’ll have more on this in a few minutes.