Political Intelligence: The agenda behind the kerfuffle over Joe Wilson's wife

Opinion Journal ^ | 10/01/03 | editorial board

[just mimi]

If GWB were able to jump ahead and immediately appoint an idependent investigation on this matter, the media will have a much harder time to spin the conspiracy theory.

I was listening to clips of the dems speak out about this yesterday. I'm wondering, if this leak is going to end up being no big deal -- or if it's a leak that acutally came from a dem to cause a scandal... what is it that they would really love to see happen? It got me thinking about all the computer records and emails that would be open to the slow process of an investigation. Hmmm. It sounds to me like this is a fishing expedition. If they can get an independent counsel, they can look at everything and they are salivating at what else they can find to sound outraged about, to try to use as an imaginary scandal to bring down Bush.

[tdadams]

The political goals must be paramount here because the substance of the story is so flimsy.

This is Democrats we're talking about here. Political goals are always paramount!

[Dog]

Larry Johnson has been a critic of the Iraq War..

[Diverdogz]

It sounds to me like this is a fishing expedition.

Yep. The dems thought this one through and see no down side for themselves, so they run with it. There is NO WAY Novak will reveal his source, and without his cooperation, I don't think the FBI will find *Proof* of the leaker's identity.

So long as nobody gets charged, the dems will cry their shrill screams of "COVER-UP"!!!!!!!!!! And then, if somebody does get nailed, they will spew venom against the disgusting partisan behavior so low as to compromise National Security. Its sickening to watch when it happens to us, but, in all honesty, I think republicans would be exploiting a similar situation against the dems.

[heckler]

A Washington Pole Smoker story talking about Wilson said that his wife is 40 years old. How many ten year olds do you know who want to work for the CIA?

[bimbo]

The real intelligence scandal is how an open opponent of the U.S. war on terror such as Mr. Wilson was allowed to become one of that policy's investigators.

I guess the author is unaware of the scores of “Clinton Holdovers” in the Bush Administration. Bush is trying very hard to have these Democrat operatives like him. I'd be surprised if the "leaker" were anyone other than that Clinton-holdover, Tenet, himself.

[mewzilla]

The person who's head should roll, is the one who authorized this idiot to go to Niger.

I just made a similar comment on another thread. Great minds think alike :)

[bimbo]

Appropriate Scandal Response: Fire George Tenet!

I'll second that! It is becoming VERY noticable that this "scandal," like the previous 16-word "scandal," are centered around the CIA. Having his news filtered for him, Bush cannot see the damage these Clonton-holdovers are doing to his administration.

[lainde]

Agree and bump!

[sauropod]

It appears to me that there is some bad judgment here on the part of Valerie Plame. Surely she knows her husband is a leftist puke. Why was he hired?

[shhrubbery!]

I don't think the FBI will find *Proof* of the leaker's identity

Using the word "leak" for this case is playing the Dem's game.

There is no credible evidence here that anybody "leaked" anything.

Novak himself says that the information that Plame worked for the CIA came in an incidental, offhand way while Novak was pursuing the question of how Wilson was chosen for the role of "investigator" of the Niger/yellowcake story.

Such a conversation does not constitute a "leak," in the sense in which Wilson and his Dem cohorts so stridently insist.

The Dems would have us believe that "the White House" was calling up every Tom, Dick and Harry and screaming "Plame is a CIA agent," out of revenge for Wilson's perfidy.

This is not what happened with Novak, and there is no credibility to Wilson's fish tale that it happened with other reporters either.

[reformedliberal]

add me to PLAMENAMEBLAMEGAME. Thanx

[Publius6961]

Mr. Bush's policies of prevention and pursuing state sponsors of terror overturned more than 30 years of CIA anti-terror dogma, and some of the bureaucrats are hoping to defeat him in 2004.

Another ingredient in the dumbocrats' lethal witch's brew.

Presindents come and go, but the bureaucracy lives on.
Housecleaning is w-a-a-a-a-a-y overdue.

[Publius6961]

That implies he was fired.

Losers and incompetents always try to lash back when discovered.
That's the way neurotics are...

[Coop]

I don;t know who is the worse offenders here- the thugs in the Bush WH (Rove is no saint) or the thugs in the democratic/media junta

And by ridiculously attempting to put them on the same level, you have revealed the depth of your critical thinking and saved me from wasting any further time. Many thanks.

[randog]

Tenent needs to go and the CIA given a good housecleaning.

That seems to be the moral of this story, although it's long overdue. Many of us thought we were cleaning out Washington by electing Bush, yet it never happened. Action, or in this case inaction, has consequences and it's good to see Bush getting stung by his refusal to clean out Clintonistas and other leftists in Washington. He'll make it through this non-scandal, but this is a serious wakeup call for him--clean house or the rats will bite you.

[isthisnickcool]

See here and you can watch a video of Wilson as he and others work to setup this "scandal". The video gets interesting about 1/2 way through. At some point some loon stands up and starts spewing that "Gingrich is a NAZI" etc. and nobody says a thing.

This "scandal" was made up from whole cloth. And the cloth is quickly getting cut to ribbons on this forum.

[G.Mason]

"And by ridiculously attempting to put them on the same level, you have revealed the depth of your critical thinking and saved me from wasting any further time. Many thanks."

Great line!

I stand in awe of your prowess with the keyboard.

I just may plagiarize that.

[Coop]

Obviously the caffeine had kicked in by then. :-) Use it all you like.