Plame is as Plame does.

by von

Jim Lindgren, at Volokh, does a creditable job of assessing the vagaries and problems for both sides of the Plame game.  If all you've been reading is the left's outrage and conspiracy theories on the right, Lindgren's balanced piece (albeit from an admittedly right-leaning perspective) is highly recommended.

Indeed, I've been harsh on Rove's defenders for advancing nitwit theories, as have Hilzoy and others (e.g., Kevin "You'll always be Calpundit to me" Drum and Mark A.R. Kleiman).  As Drum writes: "[S]mart Republicans would be well advised to hedge their bets [on Rove]." That's advice that I myself have echoed on RedState.org:

... I'd caution RedState's readers not to spend too much time defending Rove at this point.  At this point, the known facts of the matter can only get worse.

Yet, Kevin's (and my) advice to Republicans also applies to those Democrats who grasp too firmly to Wilson.  As Lindgren lays out in considerable detail (with help from Powerline), Wilson ain't exactly a knight in the armor of truth.  He has, as they say, some 'splainin' to do.

So:  Don't fall into the false trap of thinking that this is battle of Rove v. Wilson, or Wilson v. the Administration, or even Democrat v. Republican.  Don't fall into the mentality that this is a political game with endless layers of nuance to be fought on multiple fronts, or some quasi-battle between the press and President for Rove's job.*  It ain't any of that.  The question at hand is very simple:  have one or more laws have been broken? 

If they have, bring on the frog-march.   

___

*As for the political angle, I think that Bush would be an idiot to keep Rove around in his current state (i.e., an unprincipled operative and known liar), for it will wreck whatever remains of the Bush agenda. Lindgren says something similiar, albeit with a kinder tone.  Indeed, it seems that the ideal political outcome for Democrats in '06 would be to keep Rove firmly ensconced as a Bush "trusty"; tar this administration as the "Rove White House," Dems, and you'll pick up several seats.

UPDATE:  Hilzoy makes an interesting catch regarding a WaPo story that's cited in Lindgren's piece.  Do take a look.

UPDATE 2:  Hilzoy directs me to this Crooked Timber post by Ted Barlow, which responds to Lindgren's piece and notes -- among other things -- the same error that Hilzoy caught below.  Note, however, that even Ted concedes that Wilson misrepresented his wife's role in sending him to Niger (after Novak's column ran).

UPDATE 3:  Lindgren has corrected his post to reflect Hilzoy's catch.  Frankly, I don't buy Lindgren's claim that the corrected WaPo report shows that "Wilson had found [some] evidence that tended to confirm the substance of the sentence in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address [regarding Nigerian yellowcake.]"  Certainly, the corrected report is consistent with Bush's speech.  It may also provide "some support" for statements like "Iraq had attempted to initiate suspicious commercial exchanges with Niger," or "as recently as 1999, there is evidence that Iraq continues to be interested in acquiring yellowcake from Africa."  But it hardly provides support for the specific assertion that Bush made in the 2003 SOTU: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."    

Comments

[Anderson]

Von, who are these Wilson-worshipping Dems?

I myself could care less about him, so I'm puzzled by all the focus on him from the Right.

[Jon H]

I thought it was Rove versus Plame or Rove vs. National Security.

[hilzoy]

von: I haven't seen a lot of focus on Wilson on the left either. Or rather: some attempts to correct things people feel are falsehoods, but very little of the idea that what one thinks of Wilson matters as far as what one thinks of Rove's outing his wife.

I also think that the Volokh post has other problems, which I might or might not write about this afternoon, depending on whether I have time. For one thing, though, my sense is that the question what role Plame played in getting Wilson the trip is very much open; and if I had to bet, I'd go with: someone else chose him and she was asked for her thoughts.

[Blue Neponset]

The Wilson bashing by the Right on this is really just classic misdirection.

Regardless of what Wilson has or has not done, it isn't ok to leak the identity of a CIA operative.

Nothing Wilson could have written, done or said would make it ok for Rove or anyone else to identify Wilson's wife as a CIA operative.

For those defending Rove I ask...in what other circumstances, besides this one, is it ok to leak the identify a CIA operative?

[Slartibartfast]

I'd seen that, elsewhere. I'm not sure why anyone at all is focused on Wilson, given that his only role in this is the outraged spouse.

This is not to say that I don't think he's a putz, just that whether he's a putz or not is completely irrelevant to the investigation of the outing of Plame.

[ral]

You know, Wilson is a pretty impressive character. I haven't finished his book yet (just started it), but he was the last U.S. diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 1991. He posed for a picture wearing a noose for a tie after, as a BBC profile from October, 2003 reported:

He very publicly defied the Iraqi strongman by giving refuge to more than 100 US citizens at the embassy and in the homes of US diplomats - at a time when Saddam Hussein was threatening to execute anyone who harboured foreigners.

Here's what Robert Novak wrote in the famous column that also exposed Valerie Plame:

That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.

This is all just background of course, but since much of the discussion seems to have focused on character, I just thought I'd add it.

[Slartibartfast]

And, hilzoy, I'd have to agree that your last statement is something that others have failed to adequately consider.

[Jeremy Osner]

Bashing Wilson and bashing Rove does not make a fair and even-handed appraisal.

[hilzoy]

btw: Crooked Timber comments on the Volokh post here. They make the Iraq/Iran point too (as well as others.) -- It bugs the scholar in me to think of a typo driving opinions in any way.

[von]

Von, who are these Wilson-worshipping Dems?

There has been a concerted effort to defend Wilson by some (primarily Kevin Drum; just start scrolling around his site). Some of it is credible; some of it ain't. My point (and Lindgren's as well) is that it doesn't matter whether Wilson is or is not a good/bad guy in the scheme of things. The important point is whether a crime has been committed.

[Slartibartfast]

prezactly, von.

[felixrayman]

Jim Lindgren, at Volokh, does a creditable job of

A creditable job of writing an error-filled piece of trash that sources mainly powerline, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the uncorrected version of a Washington Post story that was later corrected.

[Jon H]

It does rather strain credibility to suggest that Plame's coworkers would be unaware of her husband's background.

If she worked as a schoolteacher, they might not know. But she works at the CIA, where embassies are really rather important, so Wilson would be well-known.

[Prodigal]

Part of the problem, Von, is that people on the right keep making the claim that Wilson was a bad guy in order to make Rove look innocent.

[Charles Bird]

Matthew Continetti lays open Wilson's series of inaccuracies and misleading statements. Rove ain't no hero, but neither is Wilson.

[cleek]

Don't fall into the mentality that this is a political game with endless layers of nuance to be fought on multiple fronts, or some quasi-battle between the press and President for Rove's job.

errr... i think that advice would be better directed and the RNC and GOP leadership.

[Blue Neponset]

Charles Bird wrote: Rove ain't no hero, but neither is Wilson.

What does it matter if Wilson is a hero or not?

If he were a hero would it have been OK for Rove to tell Cooper that his wife was a CIA operative?

[Jon H]

Charles writes: " Rove ain't no hero, but neither is Wilson."

So?

How is this relevant?

Do you think it's okay to burn a covert agent if you're miffed at her husband?

[cleek]

i hereby nominate CB's 1:24 post, which immdiately follows Prodigal's 1:20 post, for July's Ironic Juxtaposition Award.

[ral]

The important point is whether a crime has been committed.

Well, yes, as far as any perpetrator is concerned.

On the other hand, hilzoy has very ably stated the case that even if an act is not criminal it may be still be wrong. This is the administration, after all, that promised to restore integrity and honor to the White House.

There is another, and I would say also important, narrative here, and I use the term "narrative" advisedly. Are there such things as facts when it comes to politics, and do they matter? Hilzoy's comment about the typo rings a bell with me. I would say we've seen an assault on objective reality by the right, with the goal of rendering all political dispute fictional, to be based only on abstract concepts and emotional responses, not actual facts. This is what bugs me.

So, I second von's comment but I want to add a caveat

Don't fall into the mentality that this is a political game with endless layers of nuance to be fought on multiple fronts, or some quasi-battle between the press and President for Rove's job.

Don't ignore the fact that a fierce political battle is also in progress.

[laloca]

I'd like to add this food for thought when reading lindgren's post on the conspiracy. it's from blumenthal's salon article on the plame afffair:

" When the Italian report on Niger uranium surfaced, Vice President Cheney's office contacted the CIA's counter-proliferation office to look into it. Such a request is called a "tasker." It was hardly the first query the task force had received from the White House, and such requests were not made through the CIA director's office, but directly. Plame's colleagues asked her if she would invite her husband out to CIA headquarters at Langley, Va., for a meeting with them, to assess the question.

It was unsurprising that the CIA would seek out Wilson. He had already performed one secret mission to Niger for the agency, in 1999, and was trusted. Wilson had also had a distinguished and storied career as a Foreign Service officer. He served as acting ambassador in Iraq during the Gulf War and was hailed by the first President Bush as a "hero." Wilson was an important part of the team and highly regarded by Secretary of State James Baker and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. Wilson was also an Africa specialist. He had been a diplomat in Niger, ambassador to Gabon and senior director for Africa on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. (I first encountered Wilson then, and we have since become friends.) No other professional had such an ideal background for this CIA mission.

Plame's superiors asked her to cable the field in Africa for routine approval of an investigation of the Niger claim. At Langley, Wilson met with about a dozen officers to discuss the situation. Plame was not at the meeting. Afterward, Wilson informed his wife that he would be traveling to Niger for about 10 days. She was not particularly enthusiastic, having recently given birth to twins, but she understood the importance of the mission. She had no authority to commission him. She was simply not the responsible senior officer. Nor, if she had been, could she have done so unilaterally. There was nothing of value to be gained personally from the mission by either Joe or Valerie Wilson. He undertook the trip out of a long-ingrained sense of government service.

CIA officers debriefed Wilson the night of his return at his home. His wife greeted the other operatives, but excused herself. She later read a copy of his debriefing report, but she made no changes in it. The next they spoke of Niger uranium was when they heard President Bush's mention of it in his 2003 State of the Union address.

Attributing Wilson's trip to his wife's supposed authority became the predicate for a smear campaign against his credibility. Seven months after the appointment of the special counsel, in July 2004, the Republican-dominated Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued its report on flawed intelligence leading to the Iraq war. The blame for failure was squarely put on the CIA for "groupthink." (The Republicans quashed a promised second report on political pressure on the intelligence process.) The three-page addendum by the ranking Republicans followed the now well-worn attack lines: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."

The CIA subsequently issued a statement, as reported by New York Newsday and CNN, that the Republican senators' conclusion about Plame's role was wholly inaccurate. But the Washington Post's Susan Schmidt reported only the Republican senators' version, writing that Wilson was "specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly," in a memo she wrote. Schmidt quoted a CIA official in the senators' account saying that Plame had "offered up" Wilson's name. Plame's memo, in fact, was written at the express directive of her superiors two days before Wilson was to come to Langley for his meeting to describe his qualifications in a standard protocol to receive "country clearance." Unfortunately, Schmidt's article did not reflect this understanding of routine CIA procedure. The CIA officer who wrote the memo that originally recommended Wilson for the mission -- who was cited anonymously by the senators as the only source who said that Plame was responsible -- was deeply upset at the twisting of his testimony, which was not public, and told Plame he had said no such thing. CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told Wilson that the Republican Senate staff never contacted him for the agency's information on the matter.

Curiously, the only document cited as the basis for Plame's role was a State Department memo that was later debunked by the CIA. The Washington Post, on Dec. 26, 2003, reported: "CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the ... document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting. 'It has been circulated around,' one official said." Even more curious, one of the outlets where the document was circulated was Talon News Service and its star correspondent, Jeff Gannon (aka Guckert)."

[Jeremy Osner]

Cleek -- are you livin' in some weird daylight savin's world?

[cleek]

Cleek -- are you livin' in some weird daylight savin's world?

EST. the timestamps on the posts seem reasonable - my watch says 2:01)...

though when i previewed this, it says 6:02.

i blame typepad.

[Bill]

Everyone is focusing on the IIPA but this guy seems to think it's the espionage act Fitzgerald is going for. Like to see them tackle this over at Volokh's. It seems a lot broader in scope and easier to fall under.

[ral]

cleek, I believe that would be EDT.

I blame the railroads.

[cleek]

cleek, I believe that would be EDT

or, better yet: GMT -5:00.

[Jon H]

According to Henry Waxman, there's a standing Executive Order requiring investigations of Executive Branch leaks, and requires that steps be taken to prevent them from happening again.

At a minimum, it would require the loss of security clearance for the person(s) involved.

[ral]

For the Goon Show fans: "curse this fiendish Chinese triple-summer-time!" [bows to audience]

[Charles Bird]

What does it matter if Wilson is a hero or not?

If you're going to defend someone, BN, it would be reasonable that that person is credible. Wilson has demonstrated that he is not.

On the other hand, hilzoy has very ably stated the case that even if an act is not criminal it may be still be wrong.

"I'm gonna say this one last time. I did not have sex with that woman..."

[Jon H]

I have a feeling that if a young woman on Bush's staff admitted in public that she'd recently had a (legal) abortion, she'd be gone quite quickly.

[CaseyL]

"What does it matter if Wilson is a hero or not?

If you're going to defend someone, BN, it would be reasonable that that person is credible. Wilson has demonstrated that he is not."

OK, I get it now: this has nothing to do with Valerie Plame, or outing a CIA covert op!

It's all about whether Joe Wilson is a hero!

And, if Joe Wilson isn't a hero, that means Rove did nothing wrong!

Thanks, CB, for clearing that up for me.

[Jon H]

I think the point is that there can be no heroes except for Rove-approved heroes.

[KCinDC]

CB: Who cares whether Wilson is credible? Well, I suppose do care, but the bottom line is that even if everything the right-wing smear machine is saying about Wilson is absolutely true, it has nothing to do with whether Rove or anyone else at the White House is guilty.

[Slartibartfast]

Whether Wilson is credible or not is of miniscule importance to this particular case. If you disagree, Charles, tell me why. Subtract Plame and Wilson and insert Special Agent X, and essentially nothing in the legal nature of this case changes.

[Blue Neponset]

If you're going to defend someone, BN, it would be reasonable that that person is credible. Wilson has demonstrated that he is not.

Charles,

Thanks for the response but you didn't address my point. Let me rephrase my question:

What does Joe Wilson's credibility or hero status have to do with the morality of leaking the name of a CIA operative to the press?

[hilzoy]

Charles: I don't know who is supposed to be trying to 'defend Wilson'. Most of the people I read are clear that the crucial question is: did Rove out Plame?, and that what one thinks of Wilson is completely irrelevant to that question. (And, as I said earlier, it's not as though it's OK to out CIA agents when you think their spouses are jerks.)

There are people who try to correct errors when they see them. Some of those errors concern Wilson. But that's different.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Please lets'not fall into the trap of making this about Wilson. As many have noted it's utterly irrelevant. Even if you could prove that he was an axe murderer, that would say absolutely nothing about Rove's behavior.

The Republican defense strategy here is plain. Deflect attention from the actual issue onto a lot of peripheral matters. Throw a ton of crap against the wall and hope some of it sticks.

To the extent LIndgren focuses on Wilson rather than Rove he contributes to this. And of course Powerline and WSJ are doing the same.

[Francis / Brother Rail Gun of Reasoned Discourse]

CB, as best I can follow, your sole source for attacking Wilson is the (well-regarded, utterly non-partisan) Weekly Standard. The WS's critical source is NOT the senate committee report (although the magazine appears to say so) but the Republican dissent.

Let's be blunt: what, precisely, has Wilson ever done wrong? Besides the hotly-disputed contention regarding the accuracy of his statements concerning the role of his wife (see the CT thread), what has he said that is inaccurate / illegal / immoral?

ye gods, i'd have thought that his hangman's noose tie would make him a hero to you.

SH: You have made the same point for years on the Niger issue -- that there is some evidence that Saddam tried to get uranium out of Niger. But you never address the fact of what Wilson reported -- that there was no way, even if the Nigerien govt wanted to help, which it didn't, that the uranium could get out of Niger without every semi-competent intelligence agency seeing what was going on.

No one on this thread disputes that Saddam was a bad guy. Now that the WMD reports are out, there even appears to be some consensus that Saddam would have liked to rebuild his weapons programs if he could have found a way to do so.

But to lead a nation to war on the basis of a preliminary contact between Iraq and Niger (assuming that this contact actually occurred), especially when Niger told Iraq that the sale wasn't going to happen, is just contemptible. You can't possibly seriously believe that the preliminary, and rejected, contact between Iraq and Niger gives rise to a "grave" threat.

We're not parsing legal documents for a trial court here. If you honestly expect so little from GWB, I can only assume that you have no objection to Clinton's conduct before the grand jury.

[Francis / Brother Rail Gun of Reasoned Discourse]

and while i'm falling for CB's threadjack, here's another thing:

we've heard a lot from the conservative posters and commenters here about the the collapse in the willingness of other govts to maintain the sanctions after the end of the Clinton administration. The supposed upcoming end of the sanction regime was, if i understand the argument correctly, justification to add weight to the Iraq-Niger contact. After all, the argument apparently goes, once the sanctions regime collapses, Saddam will just dial up his Nigerien buddies and order up some yellowcake.

Somehow, the collapse-of-sanctions argument gets linked to the oil-for-food scandal. (why, i've never understood. if foreign govts were making a killing under the table in the oil-for-food scandal, you'd think they'd want to keep the sanctions regime and oil-for-food program in place.)

but the oil-for-food scandal was so serious that SH promised for weeks that he'd give us a series of posts on the outrages of foreign govts.

then, nothing. Apparently the finger of responsibility pointed a little too much towards our own govt.

but returning to the collapse of sanctions argument, i would swear that there was an event on or about 9/11/01 that could have provided a golden opportunity for the US to re-examine the international sanctions regime against Iraq.

oh no, we hear from the conservatives. those perfidious french (strange how the russians and chinese vanish) were bound and determined to sell dual-use technology to the Iraqis. that's why the Iraq-Niger contact was so important.

That, i have felt for a long time, is one of the dumbest things i've ever heard. Are we as a nation so incompetent in our diplomacy that we are incapable of using the 9/11 attack to prevent the collapse of the sanctions regime? Is the argument really that we are so bad at diplomacy with our allies that war against a crippled regime is our only option? If so, why are you voting for these people?

end threadjack

[dmbeaster]

Don't fall into the mentality that this is a political game.... It ain't any of that. The question at hand is very simple: have one or more laws have been broken?

This is way off-base. It is primarily a political question as to: 1) Rove's misconduct; but also 2) the ongoing White House cover-up of that misconduct. If it is also criminal, that makes it a slam dunk, but it is way off-base to posture this as primarily a criminal issue. And you are completely missing the huge political issue as to the White House lying on this issue.

The initial issue is outing a CIA agent for crass political gain -- that Wilson's wife was "fair game" because Wilson wrote his NY Times op-ed piece. We now know that at least as to Cooper, Rove outed Plame. His own lawyer admits it, but claims it was not "knowlingly " done. This works under the criminal statute if he can sell it, but is that the political standard for the most senior political officials? Certainly not, which the greater political issue. Indeed, Bush himself said as much in 2003.

We have yet to find out for certain who was also blabbing to Novak, et al, but only a fool would now believe that it was not either by or at the direction of Rove. So the political dimension goes much beyond the Cooper disclosure.

The greater political dimension also flows from the fact that in 2003 when this thing first broke, the White House clearly lied about Rove not being involved, and Bush lied by claiming that he would allegedly remove from his administration whoever was responsible.

Think about that. In 2003, Bush sat down with Rove to decide what the message should be about the Plame dispute. They decided to lie about Rove's involvement (disseminated by McClellan), and spin the phony platitude that allegeldy Bush would remove from his administration anyone caught doing what Bush already knew Rove had done. Then they hunkered down hoping it would go away.

Or be a Bush apoligist, and assume that Rove concealed from Bush in 2003 that he had outed Plame. That means that Bush has now decided to keep the liar on board despite his prior pronouncements. But it is naive to pretend that Bush did not know in 2003 that Rove was the leaker.

This means that Bush and Rove decided in 2003 to tell a giant lie about this to avoid the heat, but with the Cooper disclosure, the political dam has broken on this issue.

The cover-up is always worse than the initial wrongdoing, and Bush is neck deep in his swill on this one. It is this political issue that is driving this thing, and the Bush lies in 2003 are what have made the Cooper disclosures so politically devastating.

If you're going to defend someone, BN, it would be reasonable that that person is credible. Wilson has demonstrated that he is not.

Sorry, Charles, your Continettti piece is mostly crap. Wilson's story is simple and mostly correct. To the extent anyone flyspecks him, its when he admittedly speculates about what has happened, or is clearly repeating what he understands based on what others told him. When these are not 100%, the pretension is made that Wilson is intentionally false, but that is just baloney. The clearest examples of this all involve what Wilson says was his understanding regarding Cheney's involvement, but he also made it crystal clear that he has no direct knowledge.

On all the essential points, he has gotten it right. And those points are rather simple about his trip to Niger, what he found and reported, and his surprise to find out the President claiming otherwise in the SOTUS.

He has become a partisan -- SURPRISE -- the Bush administration slimed his wife for political advantage, and he is supposed to just remain calm and unaffected? That is just silly.

[Jeremy Osner]

Hey could we all collectively decide to call either Saddam Hussein or Sebastian Holsclaw "SH" and use some other nickname for the other one? It would make my reading easier.

And, agreed with all Francis has to say.

[leslie]

About Wilson: While his integrity or heroism doesn't affect the meaning of Rove's leak, I think they do matter to some of us on the left. The renewed focus on the case has given us a chance to investigate those troubling right-wing smears. I've spent hours reading not to find out what wrong Rove did, but to figure out what Wilson spoke truth to. Why? Because I admire the noose-wearing ambassador and the guy who spoke out against the administration's rationale for war. And I'm really glad the blog world has focused on it because I've learned a lot.

I also agree that Democratic leaders (and my letters to the editor should I find time to write them after all these hours of reading) need to focus on the message: Rove outed a CIA operative. This isn't about Wilson.

[CaseyL]

Lovely line from Joe WIlson at today's Press Conference:

"I made my bones facing [down]Saddam Hussein; Rove made his bones with dirty tricks."

Anyone who wants to hold up Rove as a better man than Wilson has got problems nothing can fix.

[2shoes]

If you're going to defend someone, BN, it would be reasonable that that person is credible.

Perhaps we should smear Joe Wilson with pig lard as a deterrant to other extremists?

[Dantheman]

Casey,

"Anyone who wants to hold up Rove as a better man than Wilson has got problems nothing can fix."

But that's not the relevant standard, any more than anyone held up Bush's Vietnam War service record as "better" than Kerry's. It's just a matter of trashing the other side until no one remembers the actual issue at stake.

[Jesurgislac]

Dantheman: But that's not the relevant standard, any more than anyone held up Bush's Vietnam War service record as "better" than Kerry's.

Seriously OT: I do recall some people on Tacitus way back when claiming that Bush's Vietnam War service record was better than Kerry's. Strange but true.

Jeremy: Hey could we all collectively decide to call either Saddam Hussein or Sebastian Holsclaw "SH" and use some other nickname for the other one? It would make my reading easier.

Usually it's perfectly clear from context which SH is meant. But I suppose we could call SH Seb...

[wufnik]

Charles' comments on this thread indicate why you guys should just drop him. All he contributes to this group effort is a marked lowering of the intellectual tone of what used to be a consistently interesting and challenging blog--but has now become tedious and pointless whenever he's involved. Really--let him go. Send him back to Tacitus.

[Jeremy Osner]

Usually it's perfectly clear from context which SH is meant. But I suppose we could call SH Seb...

Yah I know... but somehow I always do a double-take and it gets annoying.

[Doh]

Von, with all due respect this post is an exemplar of why I no longer look forward to your posts with avid interest. You set it up as a neutral-ish, OTOH, OTOH, but in the end what it comes down to is Karl Rove burned an entire CIA front company that was used to recruit and manage undercover assets so we could keep tabs on WMD developments abroad.

In light of that, the legalistic question of whether he violated the IIPA, the Espionage Act,* Executive Orders on classified information, or no law at all is-- as you suggest in your asterisked afterthought -- really almost irrelevant (of course it's relevant to the future housing of Mr. Rove, but it really should be almost irrelevant to his future employment). Likewise, whatever minor -- or major -- inaccuracies Wilson committed are basically irrelevant to the question of Rove's future. They simply aren't weighed in the same currency.

*Savor for a minute the dramatic irony of Palmer's ideological descendant caught up by the Espionage Act of 1917. Whatever your feelings for Rove are, there is something almost Oedipal about it.

[stickler]

As someone who just looked at ObWi, I have to say that von's initial, rational, evenhanded post is totally undercut by the updates. Clearly your warnings to Left and Right to both cool their jets would be more palatable if the Left warnings weren't so fatally wounded by Lindgren's sloppiness.

Lesson here: rely on the MSM/GOP talking points, and you get slopped.

[Toadmonster]

As someone said in the comments to the linked CT post, all of this Wilson stuff is just a big Chewbacca defense.

[Jami]

you should lay out the specific charges against wilson that resonate with you. i refuse to read them from republicans, because from what i can tell, it's more of their iraq war timing deceptions. look carefully at when things happened when republicans try to confuse you about iraq.