Wilson/Plame/CIA Leakapalooza

Where to start?

Wall Street Journal has a piece by former CIA case officer Reuel Mark Gerecht that is a must-read.

A serious CIA would never have allowed Mr. Wilson to go on such an odd, short “fact finding” mission. It never would have allowed Ms. Plame potentially to expose herself by recommending such an overt mission for her mate, not known for his subtlety and discretion. With a CIA where cover really mattered, Mr. Libby would not now be indicted. But that’s not what we have in the real world. We have an American left that hates George W. Bush and his vice president so much that they have become willing dupes in a surreal operational stage-play.

Jed Babbin has a really tough and terrific piece on the Plame affair and its fallout.

The whole Wilson/Plame affair stinks to high heaven. And the smell is coming from Langley. Porter Goss should receive credit for working hard to fix the CIA. The Wilson affair isn’t his problem, it’s ours. Right now, the CIA’s disinformation campaign has cost Scooter Libby his future, threatens other White House staffers and — most importantly — burdens the credibility of the president in time of war. It affects our standing in the world, our relationship with our allies, and our strength in the eyes of our enemies. In short, this damned thing needs to be unraveled, publicly, and right bloody now.

The American people need this matter investigated forthwith, and not — God help us — by yet another special counsel. The Senate Intelligence Committee should, immediately, investigate and get the following questions answered publicly as soon as possible…

The same Senate Intelligence Committee which had a memo floated through it about taking down the president. That should be interesting.

The Wilson/Plame Holy Trinity of Experts (and I don’t know how they keep any of it straight, but they do) consists of Tom Maguire, Mac’s Mind and AJ Strata. The thing is, they write SO MUCH and SO OFTEN (and so WELL) that if I tried to link to all of their excellent work my whole blog would be links to theirs. Just do yourself a favor and make it a point to click over to each of their sites at least once a day. They are doing amazing work on this story.

Meanwhile…there are other CIA matters to mind , as the Justice Department does what it needs to do.

Ace wonders if the Republican Leakee hinted at by Trent Lott is the ubiquitous McCain.

Egad! Can we disband the CIA and start over?

A little off-topic – one hopes – what the hell is going on in Washington DC? For that matter, what is going on in Washington STATE?