"Mr. Wilson originally said reporters told him that White House political adviser Karl Rove told them his wife was "fair game" a statement he later retracted. (I can think of someone else that used the phrase "fair game" in the 04' election - but I digress).
In September, Mr. Kerry — who is making prewar intelligence a prime campaign issue, said the disclosure of Mrs. Plame's name '...is more than another example of politics driving the Bush administration. ... A special counsel should be appointed immediately so that we can find out how George Bush let this happen and hold those responsible accountable.'"
But Wilson said that again just yesterday; he even said that Chris Matthews was the one that called him and told him that.
And I think you're homing in on just what was happening here.
Classic Rove
By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, July 13, 2005; Page A21
Now Karl Rove has become "fair game."
That was the term that the president's consigliere applied to Valerie Plame, according to Newsweek, in a conversation with MSNBC's Chris Matthews immediately after the publication of Robert D. Novak's column that identified Plame as a CIA operative. And, of course, Plame was fair game: Her identity was a tool to discredit, however obliquely, the report from her husband, Joe Wilson, that the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Niger was a bunch of hooey.
I had been reading the Rove supposedly told Chris Matthews that Valerie Plame was "fair game"...and that Chrissy was telling people that Rove said that to him...
I couldn't for the life of me believe that Rove would say anything like that to Chrissy Matthews!