fwiw, some important info for understanding Joseph Wilson IV's mentality as some deranged far-left "prophet" of doom spouting "wag the dog" nonsense:
Below are excerpts from a speech (June 14, 2003) given by the supposedly non-partisan professional diplomat Joe Wilson in the same time period in which he was launching his jihad against the Bush administration.
For the coming 15 months (run-up to 2004 presidential election), Wilson 'predicts' US casualties at a rate of 10-20 per DAY (at least 3,650 per year), huge catastrophe around Israel/Palestinians, and then Pres. Bush will START A NEW WAR to distract attention and rally patriotism before the US elections. Yes, this is Joe Wilson embracing whole-hog the loony-left's favorite "wag the dog" scenarios......
Now tell me whether a pompous self-important egomaniac like Joe Wilson would have scruples about doing anything he thinks he can get away with to block what he views as the evil neo-cons of the Bush administration, even if it involved undermining US relations with Turkey or deceiving the public about the whole "Niger uranium" issue???
http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/000503.html
Joe Wilson (June 14, 2003):
"The pressure here in the United States will begin to build because by that time (November 2004 US elections] Ariel Sharon will have made life so miserable for the Palestinians that you'll either see a de facto transfer occurring, the movement of Palestinians across into Jordan, or you will just see a lot of bloodshed. You will see Hamas just doing things every day, you'll see Israeli gunships... It will be not very pleasant for the President in the run-up to the campaign. So you'll have ten Americans dying every day in Iraq and you'll have the Middle East peace process in tatters, and the president who will find that it is increasingly difficult for him to run for reelection as Commander in Chief."
"And of course at the same time you'll still have the American economy that is weak, unemployment will be up by perhaps another percent and people will be pretty unhappy. And we'll be looking at $500 to $600 billion deficits and we'll still be looking at tremendous trade deficits and all that will start to make people wonder about things like tax cuts and all that stuff we ought to be wondering about anyway. The President wants to run away from that. He doesn't want to run as President. He wants to run as Commander in Chief. so if the Commander in Chief stuff isn't working very well for him and the President stuff isn't working very well for him, what's he gonna do? Start another war."
I would like to think that our national intelligence collectors and resources (I'm talking NSA, FBI, etc.) have been monitoring Joe Wilson et al much more closely than he dares suspect.
Think about this a moment.
The moment, the VERY moment that Wilson started his perpetual wah-wah about his wife being outed, about the White House "retaliating" against him, blah-blah ad-nauseum, I would be very surprised if somewhere up the counter intelligence chain of command if the order had not been given to place Wilson, Plame and their associates under the closest, yet subtle and unobstrusive surveillance and scrutiny, i.e., start building a file on who they associate with, who they blab to, and what about.
I would be astounded if the Wilson/Plame cellphones AND landlines were not tapped 24/7, ditto for Judith Miller of the NYT (who still fits into this byzantine puzzle in some fashion, IMHO).
I submit that the Feds already KNOW all there is to know about Wilson/Plame and their chattering fans like Larry C. Johnson, Ray McGovern and the rest of that motley crew called "VIPS", and at some point the hammer is going to come down on them like a shoe on a couple of big fat cockroaches on a kitchen counter.
We may not see it happen, and it may not even be apparent that it happened, but I do believe that it WILL happen.
Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, V.P. Dick Cheney, those guys have absolutely NOTHING to worry about.
The leakers and underminers in the CIA, at State, and their affiliated weasels infesting various areas of the federal government?
They have a LOT to be worried about.
Like that big shoe coming down on their fragile exoskeleton.
Just one of my many theories, "your mileage may vary".