I could go on but I think they are questions that require answers to validate your theory.
Oh, no. I think Armitage was just playing his how game. He was taking down a rival by going after Joe Wilson. That's just business as usual in Washington DC. You don't need to hypothesize some grand conspiracy to explain Beltway Insiders behaving like petty backstabbing weasels. In doing so, he created an opportunity, which the President siezed.
How deeply involved is Powell?...Who else is involved?
Powell was just running his own game, as well. At the end of the day, he acted to cover his own butt, in a perfectly predictable fashion.
How did he get 2 "journalists" (Isikoff and Corn) who are not exactly Bushbots to write a book outing the whole affair, just in time to affect the '06 elections?
Again, these two were just following their own agenda. Once the matter is played out and the proper information is revealed, they will write their own reports to prove how smart and clever they are. This is hardly unexpected behavior from a reporter, is it?
And, yes, we can count on the Prosecutor doing what prosecutors do in these situations, which is to run things out as long as possible and to lay perjury traps for the careless.
The brillance of the strategery is that it takes advantage of each player acting in a predictably self-serving fashion. That way their own strengths are used against them, which is why I described it as political Ju-Jitsu.
How did he get 2 "journalists" (Isikoff and Corn) who are not exactly Bushbots to write a book outing the whole affair, just in time to affect the '06 elections?
Two reasons IMO: 1) I think the entire Left expected Libby to do what they would have done--cop to some kind of plea deal to avoid the financial devastation and emotional agony of an ugly and drawn out investigation and prosecution, not to mention real physical fear if he got jail time.
If his "deal" could be worded by Fitz in such a way that Rove and Cheney seemed to be implicated, that's a bonus better than "getting" Libby even if they couldn't prosecute the big boys.
Libby really threw the Left a bean ball when he chose to go to trial and had the effrontery to subpoena lefty operatives like Russert and his wife, the editor of Vanity Fair. Mr. Grunewald must be crapping himself as well.
They cannot afford to have these operatives exposed and much worse,the possible exposure of the left-wing, anti-American cabal in the CIA and the State Department. Above all else, the Left does NOT want this case to go to trial!
What they thought was a club to beat the Bush administration over the head with has turned into a potential saber through their own hearts. They sooo need this trial to go away and not happen because this story is no longer an asset in '06 elections; it's a horrible liability.
It's a big enough liability that they'll throw their allies--Wilson, Plame, Fitz, Armitage, maybe even Powell--right under the bus to stop the trial and then hope the DBM can suffocate the story altogether.
Reason #2: they make some bucks from selling a book, any book.