Plame identity trail: Powell-Bush-Rove

[Elidor]

I'm trying to visualize that flight to Africa with Bush, Rove, Powell and others aboard Air Force One. Powell has a paper on the Niger investigation, complete with info about Joe Wilson's wife, though it is unclear whether the paper mentions her name.

Powell and Bush discuss this information, quite possibly with Rove sitting in. I'm not aware of the level of Rove's security clearance (somebody help me out with that), but Powell has to realize that the guy in charge of the political arm of the White House doesn't exactly need to know this classified information. Then again, perhaps it doesn't occur to him: after all, to a degree almost never seen before, the political arm controls everything else in this administration.

So he reveals this to Bush in front of Rove. Or he reveals it to Bush who then reveals it to Rove. Is it our president or our former secretary of state who sets the Plame backstabbing into motion?

Obviously, Bush knows about it from the beginning. He is there when it is first discussed, before the leak to Novak and others. He and Rove feel that Valerie Wilson is fair game. A decision is reached to discredit Wilson by pointing to his wife's position at the agency, implying that this was some sort of favor she was arranging for him, or that perhaps it is all politically motivated (a redundancy for the neocons: all motivation is political at their level).

A decision is reached to spread this information to friendly reporters. I don't know if Powell was part of this decision-making process, but if he was, even more shame on him. The information about Valerie Wilson is circulated to key players on the Iraqi Daydream Team, including Cheney and Lewis Libby. (It's still quite possible that John Bolton had some part in it all, but I'm focusing on the trip to Africa for now, and I don't know where he was at the time.)

Whether this decision was made in either defiance or ignorance of the law is ultimately a moot point. Are the president and his men crooks, like Nixon? Or merely scumbags?

And then, when the whole thing blows up in their faces, that deeply stupid little oil spiv that squats in the oval office claims that he will fire whoever is behind this.

More info:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5570006/site/newsweek/

[xray s]

1. Ha!! You know who that makes 'monkey in the middle'

[tulsakatz]

2. crooks?

I heard that Rove is a student of Nixon! I don't remember if he ever worked for him but he certainly admired him! So it's not surprising to find that he is up to the same kind of dirty tricks........

Of course, we already knew he was dirty but until now, we just didn't know how dirty!

My personal opinion: considering that Bush and Rove have been very close for a number of years, there is no doubt in mind that Bush has known about it all along........that is, if he didn't endorse Rove's actions himself!

[Elidor]

3. Actually, Rove is a protege of Donald Segretti

One of the original ratfuckers:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1918542&mesg_id=1918765

Demopedia on Rove:
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/Karl_Rove

Segretti, of course, worked for CREEP, and his specialty was ruining democratic speeches, conventions, fundraisers and candidates with dirty tricks.