Why important for right to keep saying Plame had input on Wilson trip?

[wiggs]

I might be missing something, it seems.

Why do Bush apologists keep making a point of Plame's supposed suggestion to her superiors that Wilson might be a good choice to go to Niger? Does this somehow make Wilson's findings less credible? Why would Rove and Cooper be talking about it as something that would make the story go away?

[wtmusic]

1. It has really nothing at all to do with Karl Rove's leak

but it's about all they have to hang their hat on

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Becuase Valerie is just a woman

a mere secretary, listen to the whole message... they hate women

[TheFarseer]

7. I've thought that myself

If it would have been a man, maybe a James Bond type that he outed it might have been a big deal to RWers, but what could a woman spy do? They probably think she was shaking down the Taliban for cookie recipes?

[emulatorloo]

3. The idea is that they were Demoncrats plotting to take Bush down

They colluded to send Wilson to Niger so he could come back and lie about President Bush and the glorious war.


at least that is what I gather by listening to the talking points

[clydefrand]

4. I, too, have been wondering that. Just supposed she did have the

ability to send him, would that make the facts different? Doesn't make sense to me other than they thought they could shut them up and/or ruin their careers.

Doesn't seem to be working that way since she's still at CIA and he has a job with a consulting? firm, I think.

[CantGetFooledAgain]

5. I have wondered the same thing

It seems to do nothing, or at least nothing significant, towards discrediting Wilson or his message.

I tend to go with those who feel that the real intent was to disrupt/destroy the covert work being done by Plame or those associated with it.

[Brotherjohn]

6. Confuse, straw man, muddle, red herring, evade... it's their M.O.

When they're more desperate, their red herrings also seem more desperate.

When you've got nothing, you've got nothing. That's the best they could do, and it was (and still is) pathetic.

[fob]

8. They use that to set up the first half of a sentence that they use as

their "proof" of Wilson's "lack of credibility".

When you hear the bush* apologists call in they always start out with "Wilson is descredited, his wife recommended his trip".

They leave out that while she may/may not have put his name in the hat or even talked about his experience in the area, she had NO ability to AUTHORIZE the trip. And even if she DID have that ability what the hell does that matter with their treasonous act of revealing her identity?

[stopbush]

9. Because Plame wanted Joe Wilson out of the country so she could

have a lesbian affair with Hillary.

I think that Fitzgerald has pretty much established that as a fact, hasn't he? :)

[insane_cratic_gal]

10. It was to Bias Wilson's account

of Niger having no yellow cake. If his wife suggested him he was some how placed into a position to find evidence contrary to their yellow cake theory (which turned out to be bullshit intell that was 10 years old). If you can discredit or show the witness to have pulled strings to get the intell, it must be a false or tainted. That is why they keep trying to discredit the information.

Or they believe by her suggestion she linked herself to Wilson therefor blowing her own cover? It's hard to understand the thinking of the RW sometimes especially when they are throwing up smoke screens.

But it's my opinion, it's no different then when they keep insisting that Wilson voted for Gore then Kerry. Trying to Bias public opinion to wipe some shit off of themselves onto someone else.

[Cicero]

11. It's to discredit Wilson

Wilson had said that Plame had nothing to do with his trip, yet the claim is that she strongly pushed to have him be assigned to make the trip. The evidence does seem to bear out the fact that Plame did bring up Wilson's name. Of course, he would then have to be approved to go, but thats another issue.

Later,

[Village Idiot]

12. They want to make it look suspicious...

...as if it was a spurious trip, undertaken NOT AT THE REQUEST of the Vice President's Office, but just "at the whim" of this CIA bureaucrat, Plame - maybe just to get $$$ for her hubby...

...and that KKKarl was acting "PURELY" in Amerika's best interest when he "outed" Valerie Plame...to show that he only did it to save reporters from printing a spurious story...HE SHOULD GET A MEDAL...

...the RW talking points continually underly these facts (lies, actually...) - that uranium WAS sought from Niger, that Iraq actually HAD 500 pounds of yellowcake, that Wilson was nothing more than an opportunistic liar, out to sell copies of his new book, that he is a partisan Democrat and his wife JUST A CIA BUREAUCRAT...

Smokescreen DE-LUXE!!!

[LizW]

13. To try to show that Cheney didn't send him

When Wilson's article was published, the WH was facing lots of questions about how the 16 words got into the State of the Union Address when it was clear to the CIA that the Niger uranium claim was untrue.

Wilson was sent to Niger by the CIA because Cheney kept asking if there was anything to the Niger thing. Wilson says in his book that he reported to the CIA what he learned in Niger, and he felt certain that they reported to Cheney. That was the whole reason for sending him, you know? So they could tell Cheney something about the Niger thing.

The summer of 2003 the big question was, "Who knew? And why didn't this false statement get vetted out of the SOTU?" The answer (lie) they kept giving was, "We didn't know. Maybe some underlings did, but we didn't."

When Nicholas Kristof wrote that a former U.S. official (not naming Wilson by name) had gone to Niger to check this out and found it untrue, the WH knew EXACTLY who Kristof's source was, and they started immediately planning to discredit Wilson.

They couldn't, at that particular time, afford to have Wilson come out and prove that Cheney had knowledge that the uranium claim was a lie, because they were in the midst of trying to prove that no one of the higher-ups knew.

Then George Tenet fell on his sword and helped take some of the heat off right at the crucial moment. Of course, later it was revealed that Tenet HAD told Bush and others that the uranium claim wasn't true and had it taken out of the speech Bush gave the previous October. But by then, the heat was off, and the story had gone stale.

[Burried News]

14. Very nice thread. I read Wilson's book and believe his account.

The question of why the Administration's supporters keep saying Plame sent him to Niger has always bothered me. Your's is the first explanation that rings true. Your timeline shows that beause they sent Joe Wilson to Niger, they knew they were lying when they said Saddam had nuclear weapons material. Lying to the UN, lying to the Congress and lying to average Americans.

This one little aspect (who sent Wilson) in and of itself shows that their illegal actions were far graver than outing an agent. They told lies - yes. But they also took steps to keep the truth from coming out; and they continue to do so.

Nice work LizW.