What Rove tried to tell Cooper was - Cheney didn't authorize the trip (as Wilson stated), Wilson didn't give the VP any report (as Wilson stated). Cooper was asking if Cheney authorized the trip and Rove said, no it was Wilson's wife, who works in the WMD section of the CIA.
What Rove said was not illegal - and it didn't out anybody.
Also .. it was common knowledge that Blair and Bill Clinton had a few sharp words at a cocktail party in London - in the run up to the Iraq war. Clinton told Blair that if he continued to support Bush, Blair was going to lose his election. Right after that the Niger affair blew up. I find that too coincidental not to be related.
I said that about the Blair incident to say this: The Wilsons were very close friends with the Clintons - and the Wilsons did fundraisers for the Clintons. What if it was Hillary who plotted with Valerie to send Wilson on the trip to try to prove there was no yellow-cake - and thereby stop the war from happening ..?? Clinton's statement to Blair could be construed to mean that the Clintons already knew about the Wilson trip and that it was going to be used to try to discredit the intel on Iraq and thereby Blair and Bush would be discredited.
What if the person the NYT is trying to cover for is Hillary ..??
I must confess it's not common knowledge to me... I missed this tidbit. You wouldn't happen to have a link to a report on this party, would you?
Sometimes I wonder if Wilson didn't out himself and his wife as a way of defending against prosecution for something else, perhaps something to do with Oil for Food or the WOT or job-related incompetance. Sometimes people become wanna-be 'whistleblowers' as a way of getting sympathy and making themselves look like candidates for martyrdom when in fact they know they've become targets of an investigation and are expecting the law to come down on them like a ton of bricks at any moment. Think of it as the defense team's preemptive strike against prosecution in court.
Another figure in the Pentagon tried smearing others when he was caught trying to land contracts for his buddy's telecom biz. The idea is to make the prosecution look bad for going after the 'poor wittle whistleblower.'
Think about it- Wilson, in spite of his public denials, did find additional humint to back up existing evidence that Iraq had sought to acquire uranium in Niger. But he didn't write a formal report upon his return. This seems to be an effort on his part to WITHHOLD or bury his newfound information from those who can act on it, certainly justification for dismissal of a normal employee. Wilson also effectively outed himself as the Niger-tale's 'covert operative' in his haste to get press time- he after all was abroad while Plame was behind a desk here waiting for his return.
I believe it was a Clinton insider.... John Podesta?
My mouth is watering like a Pavlov dog at the thought.
Regards,
Hundreds of thousands of people work for the CIA, not all are under cover field agents. Are we to refrain from mentioning that auntie is a secretary or uncle is a janitor at the CIA for fear of 'outing' them?
If you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Rich Galen is a gem.
Mr. Wilson's official role ended when he returned from Niger in March. The CIA didn't get the Italian forgeries until October. Mr. Wilson had no access to them. He either was making up what he told Mr. Kristof and Mr. Pincus, or he had received an unauthorized leak of classified information.
Mr. Novak (the journalist who outed Ms. Plame) hasn't revealed his sources. But a fawning profile of Mr. Wilson and Ms. Plame in Vanity Fair in January, 2004, offers a clue: "Wilson was caught off guard when around July 9 he received a phone call from Robert Novak who, according to Wilson, said he'd been told by a CIA source that Wilson's wife worked for the agency."
This is one of the most astute pieces of analysis that I've seen from a reporter to date, and it fills in a few more pieces of the puzzle. Who in the CIA was leaking classified info to Wilson? Could it have been Valerie? Maybe, although the wording of Novak's quote doesn't support that premise. Could it have been -- as other FReepers have suggested from the beginning -- that it was Valerie's former boss who quit the agency shortly after this story first broke? Hmmmm...all roads from every angle in this sure seem to lead back to the CIA.
Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's cover?
It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.
Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:
He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.
Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.
Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.
I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.
However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair. (Or was it Vogue? No, probably too crass for Vogue, n'est pas?)