Reply #43: Look for the expansion to include the Executive Office Building [View All]

Think about it. Immediately after Wilson's op-ed appeared in the Times, he was said to have been sent to Niger to investigate on the behalf of the Vice President. Who, then, would Novak have called first?

Scooter Libbly, Cheney's Chief-of-Staff, or a staffer immediately under Scooter. (Novak was, as he claimed, interested to know how a Clinton appointee had been sent by the administration to undertake such an investigation.) So he naturally calls Scooter (at the time of the editorial, Wilson was said to have been sent by the Vice President's Office. Remember?), and Scooter was ready for him.

They talked about Wilson's editorial, why the State-of-the-Union Speech referred to Nigerian yellow-cake uranium and why Powell didn't mention it at the UN, and how Cheney had never heard of Wilson. Then Scooter explains, telling Novak that Cheney, the previous summer, had asked the CIA to look into the reports of uranium sales to Iraq from Niger and that it was the CIA who had sent Wilson. Then Scooter lets it drop, "Well, you know Wilson's wife? Valerie Plame? She was the CIA agent who had him sent." Novak's ears perk up (all he hears is "nepotism," missing the real insinuation: that Wilson put his wife up to having him sent because he had an anti-War agenda or because he was anti-administration and wanted to put the breaks on the rising crescendo of war rhetoric that fall). Novak checks spelling ("P-L-A-M-E"), thanks Scooter, hangs up. Checks second source, etc.

It's important to realize the purpose was to discredit Wilson as a maverick-with-an-agenda, getting his wife to send him on a mission the results of which would undercut Bush's bellicose rhetoric or make Bush pull back from his decision to invade Iraq.

Given the circumstance of the following summer (2003) when everyone was questioning the existence of WMD and then to have a key item in the President's State of the Union Speech undercut in a NY Times editorial-length letter, Scooter's plant was artful and effective, despite Novak's dull-witted interpretation (nepotism). I was clever without crushing anyone (Libby is more circumspect and pragmatic than Rove). The purpose was not primarily to inflict revenge upon Wilson, nor was it necessarily a warning to others who might take similar public stands, but to undercut an opponent who had momentarily risen in their midst. Bloodlessly, swiftly.


Coda: Wistful Thinking

I'm guessing Scooter Libby is spending the day with lawyers and staff, figuring out how to minimize legal and politial damage. Tomorrow he'll resign.