Dark Speculations

(putting tin foil hat on)

Billmon asks an interesting question: should we trust the spooks?

This is not to suggest that the facts of the Plame Affair, as currently known, aren't real and aren't serious. The deeper question is what are the CIA's motives for going nuclear at this time?

This gets into serious smoke-filled backroom stuff but Billmon suggests that we might be witnessing the early rumblings of either a coup or an attempt to short-circuit a coup in planning. In other words, Tenet and the boys are either trying to increase their influence within the White House by mortally wounding the Rove/Cheney axis or they are aware of nefarious goings on within that axis that suggest to the spooks that they had to do something now to break it up before it gets too dangerous.

Which brings us back to electoral politics. There has been the suggestion, in some quarters, that the reason the Democrats rolled over so easily on the issue of the stolen election was not just because they are wimps but because they were seriously concerned that if they didn't let Dubya take the White House through a bogus legal maneuver that he might try and take it by other means. With Dubya's poll numbers tanking, is the concern growing in some circles that the Bushies might not go quietly into the night if Bush should lose the next election?

Could the Plame Affair be the excuse some on the inside have been looking for to bust up the Rove/Cheney axis and prevent them from executing Plan B?

(removing tin foil hat)

Of course, this all could just be a simple case of payback. Bush made Tenet take the blame for the 16 words in the SOTU speech. Now Tenet is getting his revenge by making Dubya squirm in the klieg lights.

Or maybe Tenet and the boys are just honest patriots who are sick of the political games that Rove has been playing?

Choose your poison.