I have reason to doubt it. Questions of who had the larger motivation arise… Questions the leftist press hasn’t been asking, no shock there.
But think….
When a crime is committed, and is being investigated. One of the key factors, generally speaking, is who would be motivated by some kind of gain to do the crime; either financial, status or both. Thusfar, investigators have been considering that ether as only one group of people that stood to gain anything by leaking the info about Wilson’s wife. Thing is, the administration’s gains are at best questionable, and in truth, imperceptible.
There are, however, a couple people who stood to gain quite a bit from such a leak; Joe Wilson and his wife, Valarie Plame. It shouldn’t shock you that the press hasn’t thought of this one, given their own leanings.
Let’s consider this from their perspective for a moment, though, and you’ll see what I mean.
Wilson’s wife, by all accounts has been in the field as an agent for 20 years or so. After so long in any business, particularly a higher pressure one as being a operative must be, one starts thinking about retirement. Wilson himself hasn’t had a job in years, and money’s likely getting tighter than they’d like.
Then too, Wilson and his wife are both tight with the Democrat party’s inner circle. They are disturbed by the loss of the White House, and the Iraq war, both of which apparently, they’d both been rather outspoken about.
Being assigned to the mission in Niger must have seemed an open invitation to Wilson and his wife.
Leak info to the press that Plame is a CIA operative, and then blame the White house.
What will that get? Several things;
1: It attempts to discredit Mr Bush and his administration both on the Iraq War and on its honesty, thus advancing the agenda of their fellow liberal Democrats.
2: It gets Wilson lots of money from doing TV stand-ups from the news agencies for the next several months, which both makes Wilson lots of money, but also gives him a bully pulpit to further pursue point number 1. (Is there any TV outlet that didn’t have the publicity hound Wilson on as a “guest”?)
3: Plame claims she can no longer work. So, she gets retired early, and will undoubtedly pick up a large sum of cash for unspecified damages in civil suits against the administration she claims leaked her identity…. thus ‘endangering’ her.
The two of them go off and live out their remaining days in government provided leisure in the south of France somewhere, with the world-wide left thinking them heroes. Except of course when the DNC needs to trot them out as martyrs to the revolution at or near election time. On these points alone this is a win/win situation for Wilson his wife and the Democrats.
Then, there’s the little matter of the carpet bombing the Democrats have been doing of late, as I mentioned in last weeks’ BIT. (link) [1] With all the underhanded dealing by the Democrats of late, doing everything they can to muddy the water, this would be just one more such ‘operation’.
Add all these factors up, and the moral assurity with which the Democrats have been making their case in this matter, becomes a rather large question mark.
Granted that this is speculation, but that’s what investigators do. And the only speculation I’ve seen so far involves some White House source or another. Given the above does it really make sense for the press to exclude Wilson and Plame for the list of culprits?
Only if they’re trying to use this as a club to beat up the White House with….