WHY DID THEY DO IT?….Andrew Sullivan tries to crack a joke about the Plame affair, but then repeats a rather tired objection to the whole thing:
What was the motive of the two “administration officials” who allegedly leaked the name of Wilson’s wife? The Washington Post suggests revenge for the trouble Wilson caused Bush. But how is this revenge? Were they hoping to get her killed? That strikes me as far-fetched. Or fired? Why would leaking her name lead to her firing?
For chrissake, what’s the point of so many Bush defenders pretending to be this naive? Joe Wilson himself has already made it clear what the point of this exercise was, a point that’s obvious to anyone who’s spent even a few minutes around Washington: the leak was designed to intimidate anyone else who might cross the administration. This is what happened to Joe Wilson’s wife; don’t let it happen to yours.
It’s all part of the mafia don approach to politics that Karl Rove practices. Remember, this is Rove’s reaction to people who displease him: “We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!”
So please, stop pretending that the motivations for this are inexplicable. They aren’t. Stupid, yes. Petty, yes again. But perfectly explicable.
