I sounds like this came out of Cheney's shop.
That NRO piece looks like they are working overtime as the outlet for the Bush administration's PR stuff. Looks two pronged now: beat up on Wilson and his wife (slimy) and normalize it (everybody does it so why should we pay a penalty; but, of course, not the point).
As for whether it came from Cheney's shop, I saw the suggestion that it was Scooter Libby. Who knows but that certainly is well within the possibles.
Let's say, just for discussions sake, Libby was the source. And let's also, just for discussions sake, give it a somewhat innocent twist. That is, that Libby was trying to get Novak to discredit Wilson on the grounds of nepotism. His wife got him the job. And, to get a twofer with a slight swipe at the CIA. Remember this occured when the feelings between folk at the White House and the folk at the CIA were, to say the least, not good. In this scenario, it was not Libby's intent to "out" her. But he slipped. That may well be criminal. I don't know whether it's the act or the act and the intent that make these things criminal.
But here another scenario works in. First, there are the reports in the Washington Post article that Dana Priest co-authored about the six journalists who were called by two WH officials. Was that a part of some campaign, related or unrelated, to the Novak event? Did Libby go to someone like Rove and say, Karl, looks like I goofed, what can we do. And they decide to flood the zone as a way to throw the media offtrack. That sounds dumb so is unlikely. But, and here is one other event. Apparently, Tenet filed a complaint with the Justice Dept in late July and nothing happened until all this blow up in late September. Which blow up was clearly engineered by the CIA via its media contacts.
Now, is there a trail of coverup activity from late July to late September somewhere? Wonder if that might be investigated? Or will they, my guess, try to reduce all this to the initial leak and toss someone over the side? Libby, possibly?
Ah, the tales we weave. |
