who forged the niger/uranium documents?

* "A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll in mid-November found that 37 percent of Americans approved of Mr. Bush, the lowest approval rating the poll had recorded in his presidency. That was down from 55 percent a year ago and from a high of 90 percent shortly after Sept. 11, 2001."
http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003142.html
i'd doubt that theres a president *ever* who has lost 59% of his support base in 4 years - and i can almost guarantee that never has a president lost 53 % POINTS in 4 years.

* Sidney Blumenthal: "Within the White House, the office of the vice president is the strategic center. The National Security Council has been demoted to enabler and implementer. Systems of off-line operations have been laid to evade professional analysis and a responsible chain of command. Those who attempt to fulfill their duties in the old ways have been humiliated when necessary, fired, retired early or shunted aside. In their place, acolytes and careerists indistinguishable from true believers in their eagerness have been elevated."

* giraldi:

"From the beginning, there has been little doubt in the intelligence community that the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame was part of a bigger story. That she was exposed in an attempt to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, is clear, but the drive to demonize Wilson cannot reasonably be attributed only to revenge. Rather, her identification likely grew out of an attempt to cover up the forging of documents alleging that Iraq attempted to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger.
[snip]
The question remains: who forged the documents? The available evidence suggests that two candidates had access and motive: SISMI and the Pentagon’s (Feith's)Office of Special Plans.
[snip]
The possible forgery of the information by Defense Department employees would explain the viciousness of the attack on Valerie Plame and her husband. Wilson, when he denounced the forgeries in the New York Times in July 2003, turned an issue in which there was little public interest into something much bigger. The investigation continues, but the campaign against this lone detractor suggests that the administration was concerned about something far weightier than his critical op-ed."

i dont quite buy it - but at least its an improvement over "to discredit wilson"

* meanwhile, emptywheel tries to argue that plame was outed cos cheney and libby strike out at the media whenever things dont go their way. she makes a good case, as always, but she is trying to tinker with the CW narrative - and that narrative simply doesnt make sense to me. again, i posit, if you look at traitorgate with any objectivity, you almost must assume that the goal was to out brewster jennings, and the rest of the nonsense is pure static. the only alternative, akaik, is a scenario of runaway incrementalism - which would be fine, except nobody actually argues that case.