Perhaps I've spent too much time writing about the whole ridiculous Plame/Wilson affair, but it is such a perfect example of a non-event that has been whipped up to the level of a national scandal that I almost can't bear to miss a day's coverage.
Mulling over today's developments left me with one lingering thought - the entire case being made against Karl Rove hinges solely on one word: "leak."
Why is this such a big deal? According to the leftist conspiracy freaks, after Joseph Wilson deliberately embarrassed the White House with a New York Times editorial, Karl Rove deliberately tricked reporters by telling them that Joseph Wilson's wife was the person responsible for sending him to Niger. Rove went on to specify that Mrs. Wilson was Valerie Plame, and did so willfully with the knowledge that Plame was a covert CIA agent. According to the theorists, Rove did this solely to destroy Wilson's credibility, with no regard for the safety of Plame or her covert operation. Rove sacrificed Plame in order to take down Wilson. And no one in the press had ever heard of Valerie Plame or knew that she was a CIA employee before Rove opened his big mouth. Robert Novak acted as Rove's patsy and published an article which included Plame's name.
If only things were that simple.
Consider this, from journalist Clifford May:
On July 14, Robert Novak wrote a column in the Post and other newspapers naming Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative.
That wasn't news to me. I had been told that — but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.
or this item, reported on PowerLine:
Hilail Gildin writes: "Andrea Mitchell was asked, on MSNBC, whether it was generally known to news people, before the hullabaloo, that Ms. Plame worked for the CIA. She answered, somewhat reluctantly, that it was.
or this, from today's New York Times:
There has been some dispute, moreover, about just how secret a secret agent Ms. Wilson was.
"She had a desk job in Langley," said Ms. Toensing, who also signed the supporting brief in the appeals court, referring to the C.I.A.'s headquarters. "When you want someone in deep cover, they don't go back and forth to Langley."
Anyone see a pattern here? That's right - there are serious flaws in the theory that Valerie Plame was a "secret" CIA agent working "under cover" on a "covert" operation.
And therein lies the heart of the problem.
The entire case against Rove collapses if it becomes apparent that Valerie Plame and her professional endeavors were known to Washington media insiders before July 2003. And so far, things aren't looking too good.
You see, you can't "leak" information that is already widely known. Based on what I have read combined with my own intuition, I believe that Karl Rove revealed that it was Wilson's wife (and not the CIA director or Vice President Cheney) who recommended him for the Niger trip because Rove assumed that most Washington insiders who knew Wilson would also know of his wife. And I believe that Robert Novak used her name in his July 2003 article about Wilson because he too believed that numerous Washington insiders already knew who "Mrs. Wilson" really was, and because they already knew that she was a CIA employee. Probably Novak thought that the only "new" information in his story was the fact that White House sources had confirmed that Plame sent her husband to Niger.
And as Matthew Cooper's emails also explain, Rove was trying to squelch a number of wild and unsubstantiated rumors surrounding Wilson's trip to Niger, namely the belief by some that Vice President Cheney himself ordered Wilson to Niger, and then was personally involved in "covering up" what Wilson found. The truth, Rove told Cooper, was that it was not the Vice President or the Director of the CIA who sent Wilson; rather it was his wife, who was working for the CIA at the time. Rove was plainly attempting to nip a false conspiracy theory in the bud.
By these reasonable accounts, Karl Rove didn't "leak" anything, he merely attempted to provide a reporter with a truthful account of how Joseph Wilson IV, a rabidly partisan liberal Democrat with no prior experience as an investigator, was chosen to travel to Niger and gather intelligence for the Bush administration. And the information that Rove gave to substantiate what really happened was neither secret or sensitive.
The whole "leak" claim is a classic red herring designed to take the heat off Joseph Wilson (whose entire story has been discredited by a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation) and at the same time damage the Bush administration as much as possible. Is it working? At this point only mainstream media reporters and liberal blogs seem to be pushing the story.
Jay Tea at WizBang has another good post on this subject, looking at Wilson's credibility via Ockham's Razor.
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