Nothing makes sense except they wanted Valerie outed to add to their cause of "Bad Bush People". Cooper was the plant. They wanted Rove out of the way for Hillary. After all, Bubba said it directly: "If it wasn't for Rove, we wouldn't have lost the Whitehouse and Congress in 2000".
The target is and always has been Rove!!! Bush has made his move and put Rove exactly where the Dems don't want him and the reporters have lost the access to him at the Whitehouse.
Well .. I want to take you back a little farther than the outing of Valerie and even Wilson's trip to Niger.
I remember when the Clintons were doing Europe to promote Hillary book and Bubba was overheard by a reporter having a heated conversation with Tony Blair. Bubba was trying to persuade Blair to drop his support for Bush and the war. Blair was having none of it. Bubba was heard to say to Blair, "If you don't distance yourself from Bush, you will lose your next election". Blair won anyway.
Of course that story was quickly quieted and I never saw but the one article about it in the UK papers.
Funny thing .. soon after that statement by Bubba, the announcement was made by Wilson that he had been to Niger, Iraq didn't buy yellowcake, the UK report was a forgery (but he didn't bother to say there was another intel report which Blair still declares was solid). So the statement in the SOTU speech by Bush was still accurate .. although the dems still whine that he lied about it.
The close proximity of these events has always made me curious if the Clintons knew about Wilson's trip ahead of time (or were even involved in planning it - being friends of the Wilsons) and it was a setup to stop the war. Bubba was pimping for his friends in France and Germany who had billions of dollars tied up in contracts with Iraq - and they didn't want war. The treasonous snake Bill Clinton - was going all over Europe telling people not to support his how president. The guy is disgusting!
Granted this is just my opinion, based on articles I read here on FR. But I still believe the Wilson trip was planned - that Valerie volunteered her husband on purpose - he went there to do nothing - and thereby prove Iraq didn't buy any yellowcake (but neglected to report that Iraq did make inquiries about buying yellowcake). Wilson came back to the USA and was not debriefed - unheard of - plus he made no report to any proper authorities.
This was a setup from the beginning and the only way to cover it up was to blame the admin for outing his wife - who he had already outed himself.
The whole thing is weird - and I can hardly wait until Libby's defense puts Wilson on the stand. If he lies under oath - he could be in really big trouble.