Nothing says consciousness of guilt like taking your dirty contraband to the laundromat. Just as DeLay laundered illegal campaign contributions throught the RNC, so too the rightwing mob launders hot information.
From a comment posted on the Huffingtonpost comes (1) the news that Bush and Blair laundered the Niger yellowcake story through the Italian secret service and (2) the brilliant observation that this is the same MO by which Plame's identity was leaked: a laundromat network of reporters and WH operatives.
Such laundering--in addition to being a crime itself--just shrieks consciousness of guilt.
Here's the text of the post at the Huffingtonpost:
THE TEXT (cause I can't figure out grey boxes)
Re: The forged yellow cake sale docs.
There was an interesting theory put forward on a BBC TV news program last night, which I quite liked.
Essentially, it said that Bush said to Tony Blair that it would be better for the White House if the Brits could somehow show that Saddam was buying yellow cake from Africa, and Tony said OK, but then MI6 the UK secret service did not want to be directly involved, so they went to the Italian secret service who were only too willing to oblige.
All three governments liked this arrangement a lot, because they realised that should the scheme unravel, each government would have an "out", by the simple ruse of blaming the other.
A sort of game of "pass the parcel" from country to country.
This is like the idea Libby and others had, of having so many participants leaking Valerie Plame's name over the telephone to each other, that no-one was supposed to know who originated the leak. I am sure that Arianna would appreciate the symmetry of the thing.
END TEXT
Now first of all, can anyone find confirmation about that BBC story? My feeble google skills were not up to the task.
Second, damn! does that hit the nail squarely on the head or what? Fake intel (Niger) and classified information (Plame), both laundered to hide the source. Now, doesn't that just bust their lying asses, guilty as charged?
Niger
Let's start with the Niger story. Sure enough, we see the footprints at the laundromat: Bush (in the SOTU) did not say, "Saddam is trying to buy uranium from Africa....," he said "British intelligence has learned...." And sure enough, when they could no longer deny that the Niger story was bogus, they immediately retreated to (1) well, the SOTU was based on British intelligence, you see, not the discredited Niger story, so WE GET TO CONTINUE TO TELL THE LIE (tenacious little buggers, aren't they?)and (2) (outrageous sophistry) "we didn't say that Saddam was buying yellowcake, we said the British intel is saying Saddam was buying, which is a true statement, they did say that."
All of which gives the lie, finally and forever, to the last desperate stand available to them. "Okay, okay, the intel was all bogus, damn! heads are going to roll at that CIA [goddamnfuckingdammit, they even use it as cover to fire the honest guys]. We were innocent victims of bad intelligence, really we didn't know."
Oh they knew. Hell, they made it up. The pre-planted escape routes, the laundering, proves it.
(They just had to have nukular. A mushroom cloud, for the marketing campaign.)
And now, per the BBC, it appears we have eyewitness testimony of the fraud. Wow wow wow. Who doesn't think that is frickin' huge?
(For more evidence, here's an interesting bit of speculation. I know I've read that the WH resisted Fitzgerald's demand to turn over drafts of the SOTU. Do you suppose those drafts reveal conscious use of the British intelligence screen? For example, if the initial plan was to say "Italian intelligence," then they got convinced that the docs were such embarassing forgeries they better not shine a light in that direction, and fell back on "British Intelligence has learned.")
Plame
As the Huffpost commenter brilliantly observed, we see the same MO with Plame: A multiplicity of players, to create misdirection loops--oh, I heard it from him, no I heard it from him. All very conveniently using the reporters' code for cover. (And Bush is so fucking stupid, he blurts it out. Remember when he said, "Oh golly, I don't know if we'll ever get to the bottom of this one, you know those reporters, you can rip their fingernails out, they'll never talk.")
Plus, for christ's sake, Libby telling Judy to source him outside the White House, indeed, outside the current administration--"former hill staffer."
Consciousness of guilt, the coverup built into the scam.
Judy Miller, Gannon et al. whores
Finally, there was the all too obvious device of planting phony information with complicit journalists. I think it was Bill Maher I heard, make the observation that Cheney made up shit, got Judy to print the shit in the NYT, then went on Meet the Press and cited the NYT as his proof. "There's no doubt that Saddam has reconstituted his nuclear weapons program."
"It's always the coverup" applies with special meaning here. When the coverup is built into the scam from the beginning, that's consciousness of guilt.
They knew. They knew the yellowcake was faked. They knew Plame's identity was classified. They made up the whole WMD thing.
Or as Doonebury said it years ago for Watergate:
That's: Guilty Guilty Guilty