Last week I wrote about the Karl Rove/Joe Wilson 'scandal'. I was only trying to make a point about RTE, but maybe I didn't choose the best example.
I really don't have a lot of interest in Rove and don't much care for him. He's one of those guys for whom 'winning' seems to be all that matters. Both parties in the US have these guys and they exist in Britain (Mandelson, Campbell, others?) and Ireland (PJ Marra anyone?).
They read polls, know just how to manipulate people, and are adept at taking opponents apart. Scruples rarely seem to impair their reasoning.
So, if Rove has misbehaved and has to go I won't shed any tears. However, I still figure he probably didn't break the law mostly because that would be politically stupid and I always assume these guys know exactly where they can go and where they can't. And, although today's article in the Washington Post sounds bad, I'm still convinced Rove didn't intentionally set out to uncover a CIA spy.
We'll see how this plays out, but I also stand by my comments that this is trivial and that if Valerie Plame's secret identity was so important then the CIA should never have accepted her husband for this mission that they knew was politically laden – even if they didn't quite know which way it would turn out. I can tell you that if I were a spy I wouldn't want my wife anywhere near something that might blow my cover.
It's that bit of common sense that tells me that this more about Washington politics than any real national security issue.
