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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Bob
Serious question for you, Slave, and bilmore.

Let's assume that you are right about everything -- Wilson's partisan motivation, that he lied, that Plame picked him for the mission because she wanted to set the Admin up, etc.

It is not disputed that Plame had non-official cover at one point in time, and was "employed" by a company that was a CIA front.

Let's assume that someone in the Admin (doesn't have to be Karl Rove) told Novak and Cooper and others that Wilson was a liar and that they should assess his motivation becuase his wife set him up on the mission. Let's assume that the statute wasn't broken by this act.

Even assuming all that you assert is true, we still have a front company whose cover has been blown, along with the cover of every CIA person who has worked there, and every foreign source who provided information to the CIA via that front company. I am sure that Russian intelligence and Chinese intelligence and French intelligence and every other country in the world that has reason to keep an eye on us for business or security reasons (or vice versa) has now rolled up any then-current activities related to this front, and are going back and figuring out all of the past covert activities they did.

Was it worth it? And would you be so sanguine about it if it were the Clinton Administration that flipped a CIA front company and all of the agents operating through it because they didn't like the comments an agent's wife or husband made about sending US forces into Bosnia (which was, as you may recall, a rather partisan dispute)?

For some perspective, let's all recall that Niger was not supplying Iraq with yellowcake, that the White House and CIA have already acknowledged that the suggestion to the contrary was in error, and that Wilson was correct in challenging the White House line.