Fingerprints

by digby

Many more qualified bloggers than I have been poring over the Fitzgerald filing and examining its every nuance, so I’m not even going to go there. I will just make one observation that I haven’t read anyone else bring up.

The filing says:

“At some point after the publication of the July 6, 2003, OpEd by Wilson, Vice President Cheney, defendant’s immediate superior, expressed concerns to defendant regarding whether Mr. Wilson’s trip was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson’s wife. And in considering ‘context,’ there was press reporting that the vice president had dispatched Mr. Wilson on the trip (which in fact was not accurate). Disclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson’s wife sent him on the Niger trip was one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the vice president had done so, while at the same time undercutting Mr. Wilson’s credibility if Mr. Wilson was perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism.”

Big Time could certainly have come up with this nasty little smear about the trip being a nepotistic “junket” (or boondoggle as earlier reports called it.) He’s a nasty little fellow. But this is a page right out of Karl Rove’s smear portfolio: he always attempts to emasculate the opponent.

Perhaps Karl only got the “plan” after the fact and dutifully set about doing Cheney’s dirty work like a good boy. But I doubt it. It’s got the mark of Rove all over it. I think Cheney got it from him.

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