(Cross posted on Dailykos.com)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/11/193753/615
Any defense Rove may be contemplating that there was some sort of inadvertent "slip of the tongue" involved in his mention of Plame to Cooper (and Lord knows who else) should fall short of the mark when one takes into account the bigger picture here - the runup to war, and the single-minded plan the administration had to bully and threaten the intelligence community into sticking by the official story about those oh so elusive WMD's.
It all goes back to lying - and not just listening to "flawed intelligence" - but actually manipulating and planting FAKE intelligence. If that ain't a crime, I don't know what is.
As has been diaried here in the recent past, pure "vindictiveness" against Wilson probably was not be the sole reason Rove outed Plame. Wilson was too close to the truth...but so were many in the CIA. Including, probably, Plame herself. And in order to keep the truth from getting out to the public, the entire intelligence community had to be castrated, or, silenced by force or threat.
(more below)
