Deeper and Deeper

The question of Who Leaked The Plame Name? has become something of a labrynthine unmystery, with so many threads to follow. In fact, as I've tried to state earlier, the simple question of Plame's name leak is a vital one, but it is also not the core purpose of the American interest in seeing this investigation through. We need to know: A) who did it, B) of what political end did the leak become a part, C) to what social end does the Plame leak lead.

The first question has been artfully dodged- it's become more and more clear that despite Rove and Libby's claims that they learned the information from the media, they likely had access to clearly demarked secret information which puts Plame's name in their possession prior to their conversations with the media. We also have Matt Cooper's statements claiming that he learned Plame's identity and role, though not by name specifically, from Rove himself. This puts the question of who leaked the information, though certainly not definitively, in the court of Rove and Libby or their close co-workers.

The second question is one of political motivation, and really the most dubious. The first question is the "Who," this question is the "Why." It's become more clear that there was a political motivation in discrediting Wilson's claims. Remember, the Yellowcake argument was a key feature in Bush's justification of going to war in Iraq in his State of the Union address. The only other physical evidence proposed to the country as evidence of Iraq's reconstituted weapons program was Powell's assertion that mobile lab units were in existence.

All of that information has been contested and disproven, and the uranium that Wilson chimed in on was a key piece of it.

And today, we find out that both Rove and Libby had been hard at work on ALL of that evidence, and specifically on the Wilson affair and the reconstitution of Iraq's nuclear program. Rove and Libby, firing off emails during the entire event, trying to build the best strategy to maintain this false evidence for war. This gives considerable credence to the speculation above: that Rove and Libby were deeply involved in the leak of Plame's name and role in the CIA.

The third point, the social end, is a difficult one to project. It is part of the culture war- Rove and Libby's self-interested preservation of power through divisive political endangerment. Where does it lead us? Well, American society is due justice in this affair, we ought to have the right to know what has occurred and why. But, as the call of the right always leans on, we want it not to be through partisan, divisive politics, but rather, the politics of truth.