Why did the Bushists think Plame's role was a mark against JW's charge?

[BurtWorm]

Why would they think Valerie Wilson's possible involvement in sending Joe Wilson to Niger was a defense against Wilson's main point in the July 6 editorial, that the administration sexed up (not Wilson's words) the evidence to justify an illegal war? Can anyone get into the Bushists' heads for me on this question? What did Valerie Plame's job have to do with Wilson's basic charge?

What can Dems do to keep that question on the front burner? Or am I the only person who needs an answer to that question?

[Lord_StarFyre]

1. Because the Rethugs know

...Without the Ventriloquist, their Hero is just a Dummy...

[BurtWorm]

4. I don't follow you.

They never intended to let it be known that Rove was spreading the story, obviously. Why did they think this story was a black mark against Wilson? I really don't get that.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. They don't "think" anything of the kind...it's a GOP talking point.

[BurtWorm]

14. It has to be countered head on.

Their "logic" doesn't make sense. The Dems really need to hammer at this. There was absolutely no excuse to drag Plame into it.

[Lord_StarFyre]

17. If you watch the Rethugs

...This is textbook GOP strategy.

Their guy is eyeballs deep in this. If they don't discredit Wilson, and spend a huge amount of airtime doing it (hense the pre-prepared "Talking Points" that EVERY Rethug is reading from, VERBATIM) then the attention shift to where it belongs, on not only Rove, but the WH itself. Who else might have been involved in this?

Those are areas the Rethugs definetly don't want the public focusing on. So, they muddy the water.

I mean seriously, look how they've tried, desperatly, to downplay Valarie Plame's role at the CIA. The FREEKERS, usually the first outlet for most, if not all GOP talking points, have, throughout this, tried to make out that Plame wasn't much more than a glorified Secretary, and that Wilson was simply a Clinton political hack looking to smear their precious Dumbya.

However, dig just a bit past the GOP fog, and you realize Ambassador Jow Wilson was indeed more than just a little qualified to assess the situation in Niger, and his wife, Valerie, was one of the lead analysts studying WMD. While Dumbya and co were running around talking about mushroom clouds and Saddam attacking us within 45 minutes, Plame and her collegues at the CIA ere trying to tell Dumbya that the WH was wrong. Not exactly the "over zealous CIA" that we were told gave "Our Leader" the wrong info.

Now, fast forward to the present. Rove most probably broke the law, in an outright effort to discredit a vocal detractor of the Administration obsession with going to war with Iraq. Not exactly the highest mark for a group that promised "the adults are now in charge" and we're gonna bring Honorifousness and Dignitude to the WH".

Face it, the Rethugs aren't stupid. They know Dumbya is hardly the smooth talking "Sheriff", without Rove quite literally putting the words in his mouth. They know, if Rove goes, either out of the WH, or to Jail, or both, Dumbya will be severly damaged.

So, does that clear up where I was coming from?

[Generic Other]

36. Did you make that pic?

It's fantastic! What flavor of koolaid are they drinking?

[Media_Lies_Daily]

2. They're trying anything to divert the discussion and get it off point.

[emulatorloo]

3. It didn't have anything to do with it -- just BS smear

They were flinging any charge they could make (nepotism) to make Wilson look bad.

[BurtWorm]

7. Wilson made a mistake, then, not being clearer about her role.

He made it seem as though it was something to hide. He fell into their trap. The fact is, her involvement is **totally** beside the point. Joe Wilson's involvement is almost totally beside the point, given how small a role he actually played (which he admitted in his original op-ed piece). It does give him a special insight into what the Bushists were doing with the facts, though--and that is the whole point right there!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Please explain, "her involvement is totally beside the point"?

[BurtWorm]

18. What difference does it make who suggested Wilson go check out the Niger

story. The point is, he went, and his evidence backed up the debunking the ambassador to Niger and the general (whose names I forget) gave to the phony Niger documents. Why does it make any speck of difference that his wife had anything to do with his going, from a totally objective, absolute, bird's eye perspective? Is there something inherently "bad" or "unethical" or "corrupt" about having one's wife recommend one to go on a fact-finding mission? How can the answer to that question be anything but a simple no?

[emulatorloo]

12. But as far as I can tell Rove 'made up" her role, like he made up McCain's

Illegitimate Black Baby.

[Hamlette]

23. Wilson could hardly say "my wife, the covert CIA agent, suggested my name"

he had to be quiet about it, at least until July 14, 2003.

The GOP hates Wilson for having the balls to go public with its lies. Wilson said he went for Cheney which makes it sound like an important mission. The GOP wants everyone to think Wilson was just out muckraking on his own. Had his wife suggest he go to prove the prez wrong. It was all a plot (by Wilson) to discredit the admin. They say.

Unfortunately, politics is not about what you believe so much as about who you hate. You protect your own and try to destroy anyone who disagrees with you. There is some of that on our side too, of course. You should always ask yourself "what would I think if Clinton had done this?" If you say you'd give him a pass (as I often do) you know how the whole thing works.

[BurtWorm]

25. Obviously he couldn't say that before she was outed.

But afterward, there was no shame in admitting that she may have suggested him. His denying it makes it seem like there's something inherently wrong with it. There is nothing inherently wrong with it!

[Hamlette]

29. agreed.

I hesitated to correct it but decided when I argue something I hate when someone trips me up over something stupid like the date of the op ed. I also write technical docs for a living so I'm always on the lookout.

We need to all help each other get the facts right. They shall set us free.

[BurtWorm]

30. I hear you!

:crazy:

[ihaveaquestion]

9. But, but, but, what about the nepotism

inherent in having an election controlled by an appointee of your brother? What about that, huh, huh, huh?

:mad:

[writes2000]

5. They Were Desperate To Distract

They needed to use everything at their disposal to make Wilson look like a reckless rogue with his own agenda. Pointing out that Plame "recommended" her own husband for the trip makes everyone ask questions about their motives.

Why were they so desperate?

Because Wilson's accusation was not just that the Bush adminstration was using false info to go to war. No, Wilson was asserting that Cheney had THE REAL FACTS and buried them. That's active fraud and deception of the American people.

The Bush admin had to strike hard and fast. They needed to undermine Wilson immediately. Thus...

"Cheney never saw Wilson's report!"
"Cheney doesn't even know who Wilson is!"
"By the way, if you didn't know, Wilson's wife, who works at the CIA, sent him! Check that out!"

[LizW]

28. BINGO!

That's exactly it, writes2000. This all happened in summer of 2003, and remember, at that time the WH was scrambling to explain how the 16 words got in the State of the Union. It had finally hit the public's consciousness that the Niger documents were forgeries and the WH had to admit it.

Rice and Rumsfeld were starting to claim on tv that it was all okay because there were "other sources" of information that Saddam had tried to get yellow cake from Africa. They were desperate.

Wilson was appalled, because he had reported his findings to the CIA and he felt positive that the CIA had passed the information on to Cheney. Cheney had, reportedly, asked the CIA numerous times whether they had any more info on the Niger uranium thing. That was the whole reason the CIA sent Wilson. Only one of two things could have happened: either the CIA passed Wilson's findings on to Cheney and he ignored them, or the CIA, knowing that Cheney didn't want to hear Wilson's findings, didn't pass them on. I believe the first is true, for reasons explained below.

Either way, after Wilson wrote his article laying out how he happened to be sent to Niger (and he never said Cheney sent him) the WH freaked because the last thing they needed was something out there tending to show that Cheney knew before the SOTU that the Niger uranium claim was not true. Remember Rice saying, "maybe someone down in the bowels of the agency knew, but certainly no one in our circles"? If people began to see that Cheney knew, the WH was going to be in deep shit.

So they used the info from the "work-up" they had already done on Wilson. Why would they have a "work-up" including classified information on a retired ambassador before that ambassador had done or said anything that might hurt them? Because they knew he had information that could hurt them in the future. This proves they DID know about his trip, and about his report.

Immediately when they knew Wilson's article was going to be published, they pulled out the "work-up" and started putting out the stuff they thought would counteract the immediate threat.

"Wilson was sent by his wife who works for the CIA." That was the gist of the first barrage. They wanted to break any connection between Wilson's trip and Cheney. THAT was the most important thing right then. What did Cheney say when asked about it? (Cheney has never mastered the KISS principle of lying, he always overshoots with the hyper-lie) "I don't know Joseph Wilson. I've never heard of him."

:eyes:

Cheney knew who Wilson was. He knew about Wilson's trip to Niger and his findings. He buried the information, and when Wilson became outraged at the administration's lies and published his article, Bushco unloaded on him.

Problem is, they have unloaded on themselves in the process. They have essentially proven that they manipulated intelligence in order to gain public support for the Iraq war, breaking trust with the American people.

Judith Miller is in jail because she knows more about this that who leaked about Valerie Plame. Miller was the main conduit for the information that Bush and Cheney wanted out there to sell the war.

[writes2000]

31. Wow, Excellent Analysis, LizC. The work up on Wilson is Intriguing.

You're saying that they had the work-up on Wilson at the ready just in case.

I've wondered how they moved so fast in attacking him.

And thanks for agreeing with my thoughts. It's easy to get lost now. We have to go back to that time and what their motives were then.

[LizW]

38. I can't take credit

I wish I had bought Wilson's book sooner because it is all in there. Wilson suspected that they had the work-up done ahead of time. Then when I read this week that Colin Powell had classified material on Wilson with him on the plane to Africa (which left only two days after Wilson's article ran) it confirmed for me that they had prepared for an assault on Wilson.

For context I read old NYT articles and the wonderful resources at Paul Thompson's Center for Cooperative Research site.

James Bamford's "A Pretext for War" is another great source.

[BurtWorm]

34. Cheney knew not just before SOTU,

but before the preemptive war doctrine speech in which he sexed up the immanence of the Iraqi nuclear threat.

You're right on top it, LizW! I wish more at DU were even half as informed about this as you are.

:toast:

[LizW]

37. Everyone is getting more informed

Slowly, but surely. It took a long time for us all to understand and care about Watergate, but we got there.

[Inland]

6. Because for a Bushite, you have to know whose side someone is on

to know whether or not to proclaim what they say is "truth".

Some of us in the fact based world think truth is truth without regard to the identity of the person who says it. As when people called for the closing of Gitmo, Cheney says, "most of them aren't administration backers anyway"...as if that's all he needs to know to discount anything they have to say.

But for the Bushites, it was all important to know that nobody from the WH had sent him. People had to know he was off the ranch, not one of of the Bushites.

[NewJeffCT]

10. why?

Because if they can cause enough "reasonable doubt" about the source of the article, Joe Wilson, they will discredit his whole argument... that is how they work.

Look at what happened with Dan Rather. Rather had a report on 60 Minutes 2 about Bush's Guard service. 98% of it was verified as accurate. However, one memo was not 100% verified... and the Republicans pounced on that. While nobody disputed the contents of the memo, the source may not have been totally reliable. And, since that source was not reliable, the other 98% of Rather's report is either ignored or questionable, too.

[BurtWorm]

16. Why does Valerie Wilson's involvement cause reasonable doubt?

I honestly never got that and never will. Wilson went to and came back from Niger even before Blair got the message from Bush that they were going to have the war, like it or not, one way or another. Did the CIA know Bush was going to have war one way or another?

If they did, isn't this an extraordinarily dangerous fact for the public to know, as it implies we were all lied to and lied to and lied to for at least one full year before the war was finally unleashed?

[NewJeffCT]

20. It doesn't

But, if they can put enough bullshit out there - Plame directed that her husband go to Niger; Wilson endorsed Kerry; Plame is a liberal Democrat; etc, etc, it will cause doubt in the people that are only paying casual attention to the issue.

Sure, it may be bullshit, but if two talking heads are on TV and one says Karl Rove should be fired and the other says Plame sent her husband to Niger, Wilson endorsed Kerry and both of them are liberal Democrats, the average person just thinks it may be more partisan BS.

[BurtWorm]

26. You're right about that.

Which is actually why Democrats may need to counter the RNC talking points with extremely clear ones of their own.

[Goldmund]

13. I've been asking the same question

Two reasons, I think:

1. "This trip wasn't officially authorized and was a product of nepotism. Wilson was acting not on behalf of the US government, but as a more-or-less private citizen, and working for the interests of his career, not US national interests. His findings aren't credible."

2. You may think that 1. is too weak to be taken seriously. And that's true. But Bushie propaganda has been working for years to demolish any cause-effect thinking of their subjects. For example, now, their defense of Rove outing a CIA asset is "Wilson is a Democrat. Hillary wants Rove fired."

[earthside]

15. To Protect the WMD Lie

Don't get too obsessed with the Rove scandal.

Rove outed Plame to discredit Wilson ... somehow his report on the Niger/uranium connection to Iraq was suspect because his wife worked at the CIA.

But the overarching motive for the crime was to protect the WMD lie at all costs.

That's why the Downing Street Minutes are important. The deceit is unravelling ...

[Garbo 2004]

19. Yes and Bushco also wanted to discredit the CIA. They set up the Office of

Special Plans in the Pentagon to give them the BS "intel" they wanted to support the war since the CIA wasn't as pliable as they wanted.

Then when the BS they shoveled to the American public eventually turned out to be all wrong Bushco blamed "bad intel" and the CIA was made the scapegoat. Which also then justified their takeover of the CIA with Goss to "rein in" an agency with "rogue" analysts who didn't support the Bushco party line and provide "fixed" intel.

[donkeyotay]

39. Exactly

They aggressively pursued an end-run around legal intell channels with their own office, which appears to have been incompetent if not treasonous. Then they blame the very agencies they hamstrung when it all turns out badly.

But the icing on the cake is that the same thugs are entrusted with correcting the problem that didn't exist in the first place: faulty intelligence.

It's as if robbers were caught robbing a bank and were then put in charge of catching the criminals.

[BillZBubb]

21. To show Wilson was unqualified for the investigation.

If they could make the case that Wilson got the job because of his wife's string pulling inside the CIA, they could then claim he got the job despite his lack of training in investigating these type of matters.

So, they would claim, his conclusions shouldn't be taken seriously. A professional investigator would have found the proof to back up Chimpy's lies. Wilson was just a gullible amateur hired as a result of his wife's CIA connections.

That's what I always thought was behind the leak.

[BurtWorm]

27. The answer to that is that Wilson's findings corroborated everyone

else's. He was competent enough to find out what everyone else did, which is that Iraq didn't get yellowcake from Niger in 1999.

[mondo joe]

22. It was just intimidation - they let him know they could put her at risk

in retaliation for speaking against them.

[DURHAM D]

24. The WH tried several approaches to discredit JW as I recall -

including the statement that he was appointed by a Dem, he gave money to Dems and was a registered Dem. They tried to make it sound like he had a partisan view and may have actually been sent to Niger by Dems. They also lableled him as a hotshot and a glory seeker. In short, the WH used a scattergun effect.

The suggestion that Valerie was responsible for getting him the job in Niger is the only thing not completely debunked because the CIA, naturally, won't make a comment at this time. That is why the noise machine gets to keep using it. The simple response to using this poor excuse is that the CIA asked Justice to investigate the WH.

[Lucille]

32. They are suggesting that they were ambitous freelancers

Trying to make a name for themselves on the one hand and thwart, for political, social, professional reasons the good faith effort of the Bush administration to discover the truth about Iraq's WMD. (snort) It goes together with the charge that Wilson falsely claimed that he was sent on his mission by the office of the vice-president. It's meant to suggst that Wilson and Plame are just a bunch of interlopers with no real position, authority, or knowledge. The Bushies never directly state this of course, because if it goes beyond innuendo, their claims fall apart.

[BurtWorm]

33. I think you're right. That's easily refuted.

And must be refuted over and over and over and over.

[leftofthedial]

35. 3 reasons seemed apparent to me

1. At the time, they were in the midst of dissing the CIA on a daily basis, painting them as to blame for 9-11. It was a consistent talking point and therefore a "known fact" (regardless of its veracity) among the idiot right at the time that the CIA was not to be trusted and that they had it in for the bushturd.

2. They have long used the "impugn-by-tone-of-voice-and-feigned-outrage" technique to dismiss their critics. By insinuating that Wilson's connection to the CIA was reason enough to doubt his motives, their loyal propagandists just went with it, regardless whether it made a lick of sense or not.

3. They were trying to make the case that Cheney had not sent Wilson to Niger (as was the case) by implying that it was really the CIA who sent him (see #1 above). This was important because cheney and the bushturd ahd been loudly and repeatedly lying their asses off about Iraq's quest for WMDs, including the bogus Niger yellowcake story. If they could cast doubt on the idea that Wilson's mission was at Cheney's behest, they could cast doubt that Wilson's report (that the yellowcake story was bogus) was delivered to cheney. Therefore, Cheney wasn't lying, he was just working from bad intelligence.


What is the simple version of this story that the public can digest?