Wilson. Joe Wilson.

Ari Fleischer's testimony at the Libby trial sent a few more slabs of red meat to the sharks as he detailed a commisary lunch where Scooter brought him into the loop on Wilson's wife. He then blabbed the information to as yet named reporters, which Editor and Publisher named as David Gregory of NBC, Tamara Lippert of Newsweek and John Dickerson of Time. Their reaction was predictable:

He said their initial reaction was, "so what?" But later in his testimony it was suggested that very quickly Gregory's boss back in Washington (Tim Russert) and Dickerson's colleague at Time (Matt Cooper) somehow knew about the Wilson/Plame link.

Of course they knew. Plame's name was "out there" in June because Judy Miller, who is set to testify Tuesday, had scribbled Valerie "Flame" in her notebook back then. We also know Armitage leaked to Woodward in June, and that Miller had other sources she was protecting besides Scooter. Was one of them Armitage? Since it's not clear the OVP leaked the name Plame to anyone, who did? Mr. Prosecutor, tell us again why Armitage wasn't indicted.

Fleischer made it clear he didn't think Wilson's wife's name was classified and confessed to being shocked months later when news of the CIA referral came out. Perhaps Libby never told him "Plame", instead using "Valerie Wilson" or "Mrs. Wilson", which wasn't her clandestine handle. Libby may try to argue he didn't know the name Plame until Russert told him in conversation around the 12th, which is why his memory slipped in front of the Grand Jury. Russert will deny of course, but as Gregory alluded, so what?

Everytime I allow myself to wander into this sinkhole I have to stop myself, jump back in the DeLorean and set the date back to 2002. In those anxious days after 9/11 and before the Iraq invasion the US Government had come across a report about Saddam trying to purchase yellowcake in Africa. Cheney's office was curious. An inquiry was sent to the CIA.

But amazingly, instead of responding to the OVP by setting up an elaborate team of agents, or allowing local station chiefs to coordinate a plan along with other western intelligence services, they allowed a Langley analyst to recommend her husband, a former Ambassador to a country nobody has ever heard of, to assume a James Bond-like mission to singlehandedly determine the entire fate of yellowcake proliferation in Africa and the status of Bush's truthtelling.

Call him Joe. Joe Wilson.

Like Bond, Joe went to Niger, a country only known for yellowcake and junk email, sipped mint tea with the former president, and found it not the least bit strange when the former official said he would have been shocked, shocked, to learn of any Iraqi interest in his country's main export in light of everything going on. Why, surely they wouldn't come back similar to their last visit in 1999, when Iraq's leading nuke expert and Vatican envoy came calling.

Joe trucked back to DC but somehow his report never made it out of the bowels of foggy bottom. Meanwhile Bush uttered the famed 16 words, pen became sword, and the rest is history. And after all this time nobody has ever adequately answered the question of why the CIA believed they could solve the riddle of Africa and Iraq WMDs with one former Ambassador.

MORE 2/3/07

One of our lovely friends from "the reality based community" dropped by, read this post, then decided to link it to his blog in order to make a sneering mention that I had misapplied Niger with Nigeria regards the emanation of junk email. Ok, point taken, reality guy. No junk mail comes from there. So let's see, that leaves only Yellowcake as the prime export, doesn't it.