WHIG-Gate

As I’ve noted previously, I believe that the Plame affair and the Downing Street Memos are both key components in a larger pattern of behavior by the Bush administration, its allies, and its operatives, to control and manipulate information to bolster their case for war in Iraq, and it appears as though Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald may now be looking into possible conspiracy charges.

True Blue Liberal suggests that the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) may well be the origin of any possible conspiracy, and suggests that reporters being stonewalled by Scotty ought to start asking questions about the WHIG. Perhaps a good place to start would be asking whether it was an overt objective of the WHIG to put politics ahead of national security, and if not, why that very theme seems to keep popping up in places like the Downing Street Memos and the decision to compromise a CIA operative specializing in weapons proliferation to discredit a critic of the administration’s misuse of intelligence.

If you’re unfamiliar with the WHIG, here are some fast facts:

Formed August 2002 by Chief of Staff Andrew Card

Objectives were “to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad” and “to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities.”

Members met weekly in the Situation Room and included: Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Condi Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Mary Matalin, James R. Wilkinson, and Nicholas E. Calio.

As TBL notes:
The full list of WHIG members is very heavy with people with ZERO intelligence background but lots of experience in political spinning and dirty tricks.
Indeed.

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