I’ve been reading some of the right-wing talking points on Plamegate. They seem to have a braincramp that prevents basic reasoning. So, let me lay out a case for Rove that assumes his only motive was to raise (legitimate) doubt about Wilson’s editorial.

First we have to enter our time machine and go back in time.

:::flip:::
It’s July 6th, 2003. The President has just appeared on an aircraft carrier to pronounce the ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Iraq. But, even though the war is seemingly over, Iraq is chaotic. And we have not yet found any evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

People opening the New York Times find a startling editorial. An ambassador named Joseph C. Wilson reveals a special trip that he took to Niger:

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney’s office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990’s. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president’s office.

So far, so good. But Wilson claims that he had reported back that the intelligence report was unfounded:

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger’s uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there’s simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

In spite of this, the President had continued to refer to the intelligence report to justify an invasion of Iraq. And in his 2003 State of the Union speech he had uttered the following words:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Wilson’s editorial caused a media firestorm, because it raised the possibility that the Vice-President had deliberately ignored Wilson’s report and misled the nation. Rove needed to minimize the damage. The first thing he needed to do was gather information about Wilson, what he had actually reported, how he had been selected for the trip, etc. Rove needed to determine his his credibility, and undermine it, if possible.

He presumably went to Cheney’s office and determined that Wilson was telling the truth when he said, “I did not file a written report.” That was a relief.

He then began investigating how Wilson had been selected to take the trip. He quickly learned that Wilson’s wife was working at the CIA on issues of nuclear proliferation and that she had suggested that her husband might be a good choice for the mission. This made sense because Wilson had extensive experience and contacts in that area of Africa.

In Rove’s mind, this offered an opportunity to discredit Wilson. He was chosen at the suggestion of his wife. He could spin it as nepotism, as a government financed vacation.

Maybe he assumed that Wilson’s wife was an analyst rather than an operative, and her presence at Langley seemed to rule out her having non-official cover.

So, Rove began making phone calls to select reporters, seeking to portray Wilson as unreliable and lacking in expertise.

The problem was that as soon as he revealed that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, it was a simple matter for the reporters to learn her true identity. Wilson only had one wife.

When it became clear that she was actually a covert agent, Rove realized that he had blown her cover and possibly committed a crime.

In this most generous scenario, Rove did not know she was a covert agent, or even know her name, and he wasn’t trying to destroy her career as retribution for Wilson’s betrayal.

He had just made a mistake.

But rather than come clean, apologize for his error, apologize to Wilson and Plame, the agency, the American public, and the President, he stonewalled.

You might believe that he lied to the President about whether he had made the phone calls. But given their close relationship, and the potential legal consequences, this seems inconceivable. Moreover, if he did lie to the President, we would expect that he would have been immediately fired after the Cooper email came to light.

That hasn’t happened. So, it is safe to say that he did tell the President about his mistake, and yet the administration has hidden that information from the general public and the prosecutor for over two years. They have allowed a journalist to go to jail. Many other people have had to expend a lot of money on legal fees, and have been subjected to stressful Grand Jury interrogation.

No matter how you spin this, Bush and Rove’s behavior has been unconscionable.

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