Would the White House Stoop This Low?

Over the weekend, The Washington Post published an article suggesting that the White House deliberately outed an undercover CIA source to columnist Robert Novak in retaliation for the source's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, casting doubt on a Bush Administration story about Iraq trying to buy "yellowcake" uranium from Niger. Here's the money shot:

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account touched off a political fracas over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

There has been a torrent of response; a good place to start is at the weblog of former unpaid Bush/Cheney adviser Daniel Drezner, who says the affair might cause him to "switch parties." The Justice Department is investigating the cover-blowing leak, which, if true, would be in violation of federal law.

Comments

[Jayson Gilligan]

The Bushies have a minor problem in that they don;t have a sympathetic media...remember how fast the Clinton FBI files discovery became a non-story? Right, 100s of FBI files procured illegally was "a clerical error."

This is minor in comparison, but someone relatively high-up is axed, and the media talks about it for 2-3 more days and then we find Saddam or another hurricane threatens the east coast or whatever. No legs.

[Robert Modean]

The allegation that two members of the Bush administration leaked a covert operative?s identity are serious and need to be treated so. I'm with Drezner in that if this leads to the Whitehouse I'll not be voting for Bush in the fall of '04, but I'm also in agreement with Roger Simon that I don't believe it will come to that.

The real irony is listening to the cries of "quell horreur!" from the same leftists who normally express such palpable hatred and disgust for the CIA, the NSA, and the Military. I doubt this was Rove?s doing ? despite Wilson?s fevered dreams of getting rid of Rove. Since the WaPo story has now downgraded the sources from ?Two Senior Administration Officials? and ?Top Whitehouse Officials? to just ?Administration Officials?, ?An Administration Aide? and ?Whitehouse Officials? it appears likely that if anyone inside the Administration had a part in this it was probably a junior staffer. I think the Whitehouse should turn over the phone logs and get this over with, if they have nothing to hide then let?s be done with it. If, however, they have something to hide? Then bring on McCaine and let?s be done with Dubya.

[Dan]

The allegation that two members of the Bush administration leaked a covert operative?s identity are serious and need to be treated so.

Has it even been established that she was a covert operative? Novak doesn't refer to her as one, and I haven't been able to find any definite proof that she is.

So far as I know, it's legal to mention that people work for the CIA, so long as they aren't undercover.

[Mo]

Dan,
Since the CIA is asking for an investigation from Justice, I'm guessing that she was undercover.

[Gene Berkman]

I read the Robert Novak column when it was first published. Mr Novak spent some time giving Ambassador Wilson's bona fides, and included his wife's position as CIA expert on WMD, as a way of supporting Mr Wilson's credentials in the Niger controversy.
Robert Novak has been a heroic critic of Bush's war on Iraq; his column on Wilson's mission to Niger was part of that. If administration officials in conversation dropped the fact of Ms Plame's position in the government, they may have intended to undermine the Bush policy by shoring up the credentials of its critics.
That said, no matter how innocent Bush or Karl Rove might be in this particular matter, I am voting to bring an end to the Bush League Empire in 2004.

[John Q.]

Goodbye, Karl. Shall we forward your mail to Leavenworth, KS? Oh, and thanks for your "service" to the country.

[Grant Gould]

Pfft. As if Ashcroft is going to find anything on Bush. As long as this is in the Justice Department's hands, it's a non-event.
--G

[joe]

Every president holds the seeds of his own demise in his character. It's just a question of what path A will take to B. It was inevitable that Nixon would eventually get caught at the dirty tricks that his neurosis drove him to. It was inevitable that Bill Clinton's lack of discipline would cause him to waste energy on inadvisable initiatives, then bail on them. And that he would get caught with his pants down. It was inevitable that Reagan would fall asleep at the switch, and let over-empowered elves in the basement get up to no good. And it is inevitable that W's "with us or with the enemy" fervour, disrespect for the professionals, sense of entitlement, and history of getting away with things, would end up with a photo of him covered with mud on the front of the NYT. Is this the big one? Maybe, maybe not. But there will inevitably be a big one.

[joe]

Although Carter, Ford, and Bush 41 got hosed by events.

[Jough]

Whatever you do, don't disrespect professionals.

[Todd Fletcher]

Jeez, Matt, can't you just call it a "money quote" - that's enough to get the reference!

[Frenk]

The sad thing is that Karl Rove has done just this sort of thing before (think "Powerpoint presentation of political opponents' strategic material found on disk in park"). Hopefully there will be some of the 'accountability' that we've heard so much about.

[Douglas Fletcher]

"... former unpaid Bush/Cheney adviser Daniel Drezner..."

As usual, you get what you pay for.

[Josh Ozersky]

What I don't understand is, how does Plame's identity embarass Wilson? It only makes him look more in the know. Was the point of it explicitly to harm her then? I just don't get it, even as dirty pool.

josh

[David]

Read punish, intimidate instead of embarass, and consider the dissenting professional CIA as the target, not just Wilson. Plame is reputed to have been running a broad anti-WMD network, not just an analyst. Bush is making the intelligence community look bad because of the failure to find WMD, association with Rumsfield policies. Because of 9/11 failure, Tenet is weak, vulnerable, beholden. The message here is sit down, shut up. Rove has a reputation for trashing, f___ing opponents, this would be consistant with that image. Sounds like maybe he poked the wrong tiger.