[popdonnelly]

"Wilson said that he did not confirm his wife worked for the CIA but that Novak told him he had obtained the information from a "CIA source."

Wilson knows that Novak's information came from a CIA source? And he launches into his attack on the White House anyway? Curious.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Wilson knows that Novak's information came from a CIA source? And he launches into his attack on the White House anyway? Curious."

Good catch. Sometimes I think that a conspiracy-Lite approach is more reasonable, i.e., that Wilson went to Niger on a lark, or maybe for personal business reasons, with the uranium investigation just as an excuse. So he did his half-assed investigation, made a cursory verbal report to the CIA, and maybe thought that was the end of it.

Then, later on, he started getting involved with the political campaign and the Kerry people, and the anti-war sentiment started to steamroll, so he went to the media and sourced these Bush-lied stories about Niger and his trip. Those had some impact, so he got more bold and wrote a story himself, embellishing the story as he went. Then his wife's name came out and he panicked, realizing that perhaps HE and her superiors could be blamed, since they were the ones who sent him on the trip and jeopardized her cover, such as it was.

So to cover his own motives, lies, and incompetence, and that of the CIA handlers who recruited him, he floated the "they outed my wife to 'get' me" story, and the rest is history, with the anti-Bush CIA faction helping out in whatever ways they could.