A question re L'affaire Plame

[pecunium]

Ok, this has been bothering me since the whole thing started.

Wilson goes to Niger. He comes back, and thinks the Administration isn't playing fair with the facts.

Someone decides he's a loose cannon and needs to be discredited.

So far it all makes sense; but the next part is where I get lost, how was outing his wife supposed to discredit what he had to say? Were we supposed to think he was incapable of rational thought because his wife might have gotten him assigned to look for info? This was, after all her baliwick... so perhaps he was to dense to see the facts, and she had to spoon feed him? Or is it that her being a covert operative in some way so thorouhgly emasculates him that we can't believe what he says?

That's the part that bothers me? What real effect was supposed to come from this revelation (other than perhaps putting some people in the White House at risk of criminal charges)? I can't see anything coming out of such a plan which would actually do the White House any good.

Maybe it was a secret ploy on Bush's part to get out from under Rove's thumb, and a brilliant plan (a la the ending of, The Sting) is coming together.

But I doubt it.

Comments

[mcduff.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree with you (even as a liberal peacenik communist pacifist or whatever form of treachery I'm practicing today), but that's not quite what I meant. I meant that you're not the kind of guy for whom "his wife got him the job" is an automatic trigger for scoffing about him being a pussy-whipped, limp-wristed potentially closeted homosexual who didn't get the shit kicked out of him enough in school.

And also that you probably have the first idea about Niger and how it's not most nepotists first pick. ("hey honey, happy birthday, you get to go to Niger all by yourself and talk to people about Uranium!" "Are you still mad about those shelves? I'll put them up when I get time!")

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

But the kind of guy who's likely to be swayed by the wife got him his job argument is (to be a tad bigoted) likely to be a loyal Bush follower, being more the Kirche und Kinder sort to begin with.

I am the target audience for whom they want to discredit Wilson, so the whole play seems worse than a bungle, it seems stupid.

TK

[mcduff.livejournal.com]

Now that I don't doubt, but I think it was a case where someone made an error of judgement and let their emotions run the shop for a brief while. The first major PR error of the Bush administration, I think.