Democratic leaders argue the president should jettison Rove, who graduated from Olympus High School and attended the University of Utah, for his alleged involvement in outing undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame, whose husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a harsh critic of the Bush administration.

Wilson, by the way, is purchasing a vacation home in Utah at the base of Powder Mountain.

Republicans, meanwhile, counter that Rove didn't break any laws and the "far left" is just trying to malign the political strategist.

Addressing the issue before Sunday's new account from Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, Utah's federal representatives said either they didn't know enough to call for Rove's resignation or they believe Rove did nothing wrong.

"This is a tempest in a teapot designed to embarrass the president and get back at Karl Rove for being such an effective adviser," said Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch. "Karl Rove is an exceptional person, and I'm proud that he has Utah ties. I don't believe for a second he would do what his political opponents are accusing him of doing - he is too decent a person, and frankly, he is too smart."

Utah's junior Republican senator, Bob Bennett, who once ran a public relations company that was a CIA cover, said he has consulted with "outside counsel" who found that "under no circumstances and in no way did Karl Rove break the law."

"I support his conclusion," Bennett said. "I have full confidence that Karl Rove will continue to serve in this administration, as indeed he should."

Wilson, an avid skier who says Utah vacations in the last year helped him cool off during the controversy, told The Salt Lake Tribune that the Republicans are trying to deflect a "serious national security" issue by dismissing it as partisan rhetoric.

"We have not one single Republican at the federal level - to the best of my knowledge - who has been prepared even to stand up and say this was wrong," Wilson said.

"It is not partisan. It is national security, and for the Republicans to try and make a national security issue into a partisan issue and just to ignore the fact that leaking the name of a covert operative is wrong, I find very troubling indeed."

But even Utah's only Democrat in Congress, Jim Matheson, isn't ready to call for Rove's head.

He says he supports Bush's position of waiting for the special counsel investigation to finish and that all the facts should come out before drawing a conclusion.

"Our national security and the safety of people who work for the CIA may have been compromised because of this leak," Matheson said. "Whoever is responsible should be held accountable under the law."

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, says he doesn't know how the president should handle the Rove affair.

"I don't know the entire story of the situation anyway," Bishop said, noting that the whole debacle may come down to partisan politics. "I don't think the entire issue is out there, so I'm certainly not going to say what the president should do."

Utah Rep. Chris Cannon said there are many unknowns in the debacle, but "what we do know suggests to me that there's not a problem."

Cannon says there's no basis for the outcry over Rove and that if anything he was just trying to help a reporter, which was one of the talking points suggested by the Republican National Committee to help the GOP deal with the scandal. Cannon welcomed Wilson to Utah, but said he seems to be a "megalomaniac" who is trying to portray himself as more important than he really is.

Wilson says he is excited to visit Utah later this year to ski and that he may even register to vote in the Weber County community of Eden.

"I spent a good part of the winter out in Utah and even though, of course, it is one of the most reliably Republican states in the country I've found the people extraordinarily hospitable," Wilson said. "It was a great tonic for my wife, my kids and myself to be out of Washington."

tburr@sltrib.com