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In the long and lively mythology of Karl Rove, whom Republicans see as a fearless gladiator and Democrats view as the kind of operative who would put a tarantula under an opponent's pillow, it is entirely plausible that he would try to discredit an adversary by any means necessary. But outing a spy? Compromising national security in wartime? It was the first President Bush who once described anyone who exposed intelligence assets as "the most insidious of traitors." Rove had long insisted that he didn't know Valerie Plame's name or leak it and was cooperating fully with the probe. By last week, that denial had come to seem Clintonian in its legal precision. It's true Rove didn't tell Cooper her name but rather referred to her as Wilson's wife. On the other hand, a simple Google search of Ambassador Wilson turned up her name but not her affiliation. The evolving explanation of Rove's role was enough to let Democrats dream that they might have snared him at long last, while Republicans retorted that, far from incriminating Rove, the latest evidence exonerated him.
Part of what has made Rove a legend is his passion for his work. He is not the kind of political professional who does battle during the day and then breaks bread with his adversary at night. When Rove assails an opponent, he believes what he's saying. And it may be his capacity for convincing himself that his adversaries are vile, corrupt, dangerous and stupid that makes the job of destroying them come so easily. So when Joe Wilson emerged in July 2003 as a well-credentialed critic of the Administration's case for going to war, he placed himself squarely in Rove's sights.
Here was a former ambassador, an Africa expert, who could flaunt his pictures with past Presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike--including one with President George H.W. Bush, who had called Wilson a hero for his service as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad before the first Gulf War. When Wilson wrote in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, nearly four months after the war began, that "intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat," it represented the most damaging charge yet against the Administration's handling of prewar intelligence. Wilson explained that CIA officials recruited him to help them answer questions raised by Vice President Cheney's office about an intelligence report documenting the attempted sale of uranium yellowcake by Niger to Iraq. The officials asked him to travel to Niger in February 2002 "to check out the story." His article suggested that when he failed to come up with answers the Administration wanted, they ignored his findings, since Bush went on to claim in his January 2003 State of the Union message that according to British intelligence, Iraq had recently sought uranium from Africa.