Dear Israel

YELLOCAEK!!

Jack said I should blog something about this Karl Rove / Valerie Plame thing. I almost blogged it yesterday, after listening to Limbaugh on the radio and finding out that I, member of the famed "Liberals" that AM radio people are always talking about, was actually "hysterical" and "increasingly desperate" about kicking Karl Rove out of government. Also, I learned that watching me and the rest of the Left being so hysterical was "absolutely hilarious".

Heretofore, I'd always thought that I was mildly bemused about the whole affair, so I was grateful that I tuned in to hear what I actually thought. I'd missed the "What Liberals Think About Stuff That's Going on In the World" talking points I usually get with my morning paper.

Anyways, the whole sordid bullshit, as I understand it, goes something like this:

1. "Unknown Parties" forge the infamous Yellowcake documents, which say that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Nigeria.
2. These documents get leaked from Italian Intelligence (SISMI) to an Italian journalist, and hit the CIA's radar.
3. Somewhere in here, Wilson goes to Nigeria and debunks.
4. The documents are discovered to be frauds, but are passed along the line anyways and end up in Bush's State of the Union address.
5. The American people get freaked out.
6. Wilson, who is Valerie Plame's husband, mentions in a New York Times op-ed that these documents have already been debunked as frauds.
7. Karl Rove mentions to some journalists that Valerie Plame works for the CIA and that they're both HUGE LIBERALS.
8. The White House says that Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leakage.
9. It turns out that's not quite the case.
10. Everyone flips out the fuck out.

On this story, my predominant thought is usually: "Who gives a shit?"

But then sometimes after that, I'll think: "Hahahahahaaahaha!!"

But after that, I usually think: "Jesus, what a bunch of chaffed-up nonsense".

I don't really care that Rove leaked Valerie Plame's name, because really, her status as "covert" operative for the CIA is pretty questionable. So assuming that Rove did it, I don't think a case for felony can be made.

On the other hand, watching Scott McClellan try to spin his way out of the White House's previous denials that Rove had nothing to do with it is absolutely hysterical. Hmmm, maybe Rush was right when he said I was being hysterical. Weird.

Anyways, the only interesting point this entire story has is this: Why did Rove feel the need to try and "debunk" Plame and Wilson? The Nigerian Yellowcake documents were forgeries, there's no question about that. If we believe there is any sort of "quest for truth" in the Intelligence Community and in governmental policy-making in general, Rove should've been thanking Wilson/Plame for exposing a dangerous fraud.

Of course, that idea is fucking laughable, even to the most politically naive. Rove tried to cast aspersions on Plame / Wilson *because* Wilson exposed the fraud, not in spite of it.

See the interesting part of the story is Step 1, where "unknown parties" forge documents that say Iraq is trying to buy Nigerian yellowcake. These documents were just the 1st of the many pieces of shitty, sometimes completely fictitious intelligence products that got trotted out to American policy-makers and the American public, all in an effort to build support for invading Iraq.

Laura Rozen, who I love, has done a lot of research and traced where and how these Nigerian documents came to be. And it shows pretty clearly that they first show up from Italian Intelligence. The same Italian Intelligence whom several neo-conservatives, including noted Iran-Contra figure (also, noted fag) Michael Ledeen, just happened to meet with in Rome shortly before the documents came to light. That's the same Michael Ledeen, btw, who just happened to be the liason between US and Italian intelligence during the 80s under Reagan. And those just happen to be the same set of neo-conservatives who'd been yammering since 1998 about how we desperately needed to invade Iraq.

Asked if it would it be accurate to assert that the fradulent Nigerian documents came from Michael Ledeen, former National Security Council Intelligence Director Vincent Cannistaro said "you'd be very close".

So basically, with a couple assumptions based on the available evidence, the story really appears to be something more like this:

1. Neo-conservatives make up some bullshit about how Iraq is trying to buy uranium.
2. People in the Pentagon make sure the bullshit gets passed along to Cheney and Bush, even tho the CIA has debunked it already.
3. The President reports this bullshit to the United States, cause he's a fag.
4. Out of abject, quivering, pee-pee inducing fear, soccer-moms everywhere hug their kids so tightly that several children pass out from lack of O2. 
5. Wilson / Plame expose said bullshit.
6. Rove burns a CIA agent, and with her her contacts, as punishment for exposing their carefully crafted bullshit.

And now here we are, dickering about whether or not Rove did blahblahblah, and who knewwhatwhenhow. And of course, as always, no one seems to be looking into what is obvious to anyone paying the faintest bit of attention:

That this government is run by people for whom deceit is the highest of virtues.

posted on Wednesday, July 13, 2005 3:01 PM