Plame Conspiracy 101
And why "high crimes" does not apply

An investigation longer than Watergate is nearing its end, and we may soon learn how it came to be that a career CIA employee had her career trashed by people trying to discredit her husband.

Then again, we may not.

But it's not like millions of people passionately care anyway. Even if they should.

And even if it's for the wrong reason.

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The leaking of a CIA agent's name has been an inside-the-Beltway sort of scandal. Average folks know a reporter, Judith Miller, went to jail to protect a source, even if they don't know the ins and outs of it. They know the President's brain, Karl Rove, might be indicted.

If you're looking for an analogy, think Martha Stewart. Like Martha, who was charged with obstructing justice in the case of a crime for which she was never charged, this CIA leak case was pretty weak, fact-wise. Just like Martha, the question is whether anyone perjured themselves or obstructed justice along the way.

We learned a lot of details when the reporter, Judith Miller, finally saw the light on an important principle. Protecting a source is designed as a way to keep the government honest; it doesn't make any sense to protect the government when it's the government doing the leaking. When she finally talked, it was clear that the man she was protecting (Libby) was the most likely of all to get indicted.

The New York Times had an extraordinary piece on the matter last Sunday, and in some incredibly blunt quotes, they essentially threw Miller under the bus. It was clear the Times protected her because they had to. Truth be told, she was too cozy with her sources, she'd been spoon-fed Administration spin in the run-up to the Iraq War, and quite frankly, you got the impression the Times would have rather fired her than defend her.

Which gets us to the real conspiracy here.

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The identity of the CIA agent, Valerie Plame, was apparently leaked to get back at the first American to publicly challenge the Bush Administration of sexing up the intelligence when it came to Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. That person was her husband, a former U.S. ambassador named Joe Wilson.

The fact that this case all stems from Iraqi WMDs is a key factor in America not much caring about this particular scandal. A lot of Americans have made up their minds on what to think about Iraq not having nukes, and a large percentage of the population has decided that whatever the details, the entire war was worth it to get rid of Saddam Hussein.

So whether it's Paul O'Neill's book or Richard Clarke's testimony or the Downing Street memo -- all of which demonstrate Bush was secretly working for war long before he went public -- it doesn't really resonate with Joe Six-Pack.

What makes Wilson so crucial is that he punctured a big hole in the war balloon, the idea that Hussein had nuclear weapons.

Now here's what should get Joe Six Pack's attention.

Why would nuclear weapons have come up in the first place?

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The job of selling this war fell to what was known as WHIG -- the White House Iraq Group -- and oddly enough, people in this group (including Rove and Libby) have been hauled in front of the grand jury to testify. This group is credited for bringing the nuclear option into media discussion of Hussein. It sounds like the movie "Wag The Dog" -- the poison gas thing wasn't flying, and the anthrax wasn't moving the meter, so how bout some nukes, eh?

Mainstream media accounts talk of "feuds" between the CIA and WHIG over Iraqi intelligence. No joke. When you're substituting politically-inspired, desired conclusions for real intelligence, there's bound to be some conflict.

The real story, at least as it appears as we await the conclusion of a grand jury's work, is that there was an organized conspiracy not to trash one man but to mislead an entire American public on the most basic of democratic principles -- the decision on going to war.

Here's the ironic thing.

Outing an agent is a crime, but a conspiracy to spin the people is not.

***

You may have heard of the term "high crimes and misdemeanors." It would certainly seem that a conspiracy to get into a war of choice on trumped-up grounds would be a high crime -- especially after 17,200 killed and wounded U.S. soldiers.

Well, bad news there. There is no concept of high crime in criminal law. High crime is a matter of constitutional law, and only in the case of impeachment. Considering Republicans run Congress, the chance of an impeachment is zero.

In fact, the odds of even Congressional hearings are pretty much zero. There were Congressional hearings into Watergate, but that's because while Nixon was a Republican, Democrats ran Congress.

Final point. There's one person notably silent in all this, a person who could verify that the Vice President's office and the WHIG folks and the President's spin doctors were hijacking foreign policy. And that's the man who was supposed to be in charge of foreign policy -- Secretary of State Colin Powell.

I don't expect him to carry his secrets to his grave.

Especially if he's called to testify.

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