Wilsonmania II

I pointed you all to the interview with Wilson co-counsel Erwin Chemerinsky from last week. Yesterday in the weekly-segment that Hugh calls "The Smart Guys," we got a second look at the Wilson case according to Erwin (who looked less & less smart as the thing went on as he continued to display an amazing un-grasp of contemporaneous facts surrounding the case).

Throughout the course of the interview, Erwin repeatedly insists that the WH outed Valerie Plame and at least damaged, if not destroyed her career:

EC: Well, I think he was being honest in the New York Times, and there are other letters that he's written, for example, a 2005 letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee, again restating exactly what he said in his op-ed piece. So I don't believe that he has in any been disingenuous or changed his story. I also think it's missing the point. The point of our lawsuit is that Vice President Cheney, Lewis Libby and Karl Rove grossly abused their power by revealing the identity of a secret CIA operative, solely for their own partisan political gain.

...

EC: But I think you're missing the point. The point isn't whether the meeting occurred or not. We can certainly argue about that, and the point isn't it a consistency, though I believe he's consistent. The point is you're trying to shift the blame for abuse of power to the victim. And that's what I really disagree with. The...

...

EC: But you're missing the point. Joe Wilson maintains he's been consistent in denying that that meeting occurred. But what I'm saying is I think here, you're missing the point, because the issue isn't Joe Wilson's credibility. If the administration wanted to attack Joe Wilson's credibility after his New York Times op-ed, they could say whatever they wanted about Joe Wilson. But what they couldn't say is...

...

EC: I could not disagree more. I don't believe he's disingenuous, nor do I believe he's a liar. I believe that he has been quite consistent in denying that the meeting occurred. But I also can't say enough, I think by shifting the focus to him, what you're missing is what this is about. This isn't about his credibility. You want to attack his credibility, attack it. That doesn't justify revealing that his wife was a secret CIA operative.

Throughout the exchange, Erwin always comes home to the safety of the "WH outed her" declarative. Only problem is, that no longer holds up.

Christopher Hitchens made that clear in an interview with Hugh earlier in the day:

HH: No, but there is this lawsuit, and Valerie Plame says that she would still have her career, but for the actions of senior Bush administration officials. What's the single best argument against that assertion, Christopher Hitchens?

CH: It's very simple, and it's made by Robert Novak, who's just come from testifying under oath on the point several times to the grand jury, to the special prosecutor, and to the FBI, that nobody approached him, that he approached members of the administration. The best guess of which member, important member of the administration vendimus that spoke to him is...I can't materialize this...I can't prove it, but it is the best guess of every journalist who's covered this, and every lawyer involved in it is that it was Richard Armitage...

HH: Yes.

CH: ...who as you well know, is on the other side in the regime change. He was a bitter critic of the administration's line in Iraq.

HH: Yes.

CH: So there's nothing to this at all. And if they think that by bringing a frivolous civil lawsuit, if the courts allow it, which I doubt, they're going to get more access to the inner circles of the administration that Patrick Fitzgerald got with waivers and subpoenas. They're dreaming again. It's just the last bit of they're running on empty.

As he did last week, Erwin continues to display a horrible grasp of facts surrounding what Wilson did/didn't say and do after his Niger trip:

HH: Erwin, do you believe that meeting occurred in June of 1999 between Iraq and Niger?

EC: I certainly believe Joe Wilson that he said that he did not...no, that it did not.

HH: And are you aware of his private CIA debrief in March of 2002?

EC: I've read reports of it, yes.

HH: And did those reports include his saying that the meeting occurred?

EC: I don't recall that. I mean, I've heard you say that. I've not gone back to look at what that said.

HH: Have you read the book, The Politics of Truth yet?

EC: Yes, I have.

HH: Did he say in his book the meeting occurred?

EC: I don't remember. I mean, again, my focus has not been on Joe Wilson's credibility. My focus has been...

HH: Would you guys stick around, because I know we've got to go to break, and I want to give John a chance to comment on this, and Erwin a chance to comment on this. By the way, Erwin, the DCI, Tenet, said the meeting occurred in a July 11th, 2003, CIA statement. So at least at that point forward, it's public knowledge that it occurred, unless you want to say Tenet was lying.

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HH: John Eastman, you heard that exchange with Erwin about the Iraq-Niger meeting. Your reaction?

JE: Well, I think it is...the questions you're asking, Hugh, are highly relevant. Look, you have a partisan buried in the CIA who goes over there, misrepresents what we knew about Iraqi contacts with Niger, and their attempts to obtain yellowcake. He does it in a very public way in the New York Times, and now all of a sudden, criticism of him and exposure of the contacts he has within CIA that led to his trips is off limits somehow. This is rank partisanship on one side, and not on the other. And Bush's administration was perfectly legitimate in responding to this. And to try and make it out to some Constitutional violation of privacy by people who have put themself out in the front of this in a very public way, I think it disingenuous.

HH: Erwin?

JE: I think the Bush administration was well within its rights to do what it did.

EC: I couldn't disagree more. I have not gone back and read all of Joe Wilson's statements, so I'll admit, I can't go back, as you were doing, and say he said this on this date or that on another day, because that hasn't been my focus. I've been working very hard on this for several months. My focus has been on what the administration did, and I believe that the administration acted in an absolutely despicable way in choosing to release the identity of a secret CIA operative, solely for their partisan political gain. You want to attack Joe Wilson, criticize Joe Wilson. Say he's disingenuous. And if you want, you can even call him a liar, though I believe he's not. But to reveal the identity of a CIA operative is completely inappropriate, and it was an unconstitutional action relative to these individuals.

HH: Now Erwin, Bob Novak has blown your theory out of the air by saying he...the administration didn't appoach him, he approached the administration, and it's probably Richard Armitage. I just don't know how you're going to make this thing stick.

Pretty much everybody with a brain that has examined this over time has reached essentially the same conclusion; the leaker was an official at the State Department (no fan institutionally nor individually in Armitage's case) who let things slip that he shouldn't have. Novak's revelations and the Fitzgerald investigation make it clear that there was no conspiracy to out Plame, that her outing was almost "accidental" in terms of intentions and that, most assuredly, the administration did not shop the story 'til they found a willing journalist to carry their water as was initially charged in the initial months after Plame's naming.

Erwin is either engaged in a serious rope-a-dope and knows something that the rest of us have yet to intuit or dig up for I can't imagine that he'd be this uninformed in a case that actually...had a case. Either that or he, like the Wilsons I imagine, is killing time waiting for this to be thrown out of court so that Joe and Valerie can bravely stand before the legions of Bush Haters who've rested their hopes on Joe and Valerie's broad shoulders and say, with quivering lips and wavering voice, "We tried."