No Truce With Kings: All I know is that if some minor players in the Bush administration ratted Plame out to Novak they are walking dead. Bush is gonna get them for leaking to the press, then he is going to turn them over to Justice, and see that they are prosecuted. And I will bet that it don't hurt W politically.That's an interesting theory. The question a lot of us have though is, why didn't Bush do that two months ago when the name was leaked and published? They knew then that it was illegal, regardless of the politics, and Bush and Ashcroft were pushing a law to punish leakers. Why didn't the president find the culprit then, have him or her prosecuted and nip this story in the bud, rather than ignoring it and then have it blow up in their faces like this? Were they protecting someone higher up but below Bush? Is that why the suspicion was focused initially on Karl Rove, the most politically partisan person in the White House?
Who are W's most powerful enemies, and how have they colluded to finally manage to dent the armor?
Answer to part a: the Clintons, the press, liberal spooks. Answer to part b: The Clintons hatched the plan. CIA operatives carried it out. The press filtered the story.
Wilson does his Niger thing, angering Rove, and intentionally leaves his wife Plame's spook status out in the open as bait. The administration enforcers start calling up reporters to retaliate by outing that Wilson probably got the Niger gig through his wife and - see, they are gunning for Bush!
The brand of hardball they are playing is Washington standard issue. Reporters normally will guarantee anonymity to get the juicy story. But the first three reporters they call (playing it according to their true loyalties; i.e. anything to stick it to Bush) stonewall the news, causing the enforcers to overplay their hand. And now the whole administration has egg on their faces for getting caught doing Washington hardball.