Whiggate Update. "Plamegate" began with the Downing Street Memo in July 2002, not with the leaking of Valerie Plame's name in July 2003

"For Two Aides in Leak Case, 2nd Issue Rises"
- New York Times - 22 July 2005:

"...A federal grand jury investigation is under way by a special counsel to determine whether someone illegally leaked the officer's identity and possibly into whether perjury or obstruction of justice occurred during the inquiry.
People who have been briefed on the case said the White House officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, were helping prepare what became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address six months earlier.
They had exchanged e-mail correspondence and drafts of a proposed statement by George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the address. Mr. Rove, the president's political strategist, and Mr. Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their efforts with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, who was in turn consulting with Mr. Tenet.
At the same time, they were grappling with the fallout from an Op-Ed article on July 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Mr. Wilson, a former diplomat, in which he criticized the way the administration had used intelligence to support the claim in Mr. Bush's speech.... [emphasis of, and links to, WHIG member names added]

This scandal started at least three years ago with the meeting described in The Downing Street Memo at which the fixing of facts and intelligence about WMDs (especially nonexistent nuclear WMDs) was clearly discussed, not two years ago with the breaking of Valerie Plame's CIA cover by Republican scribe Robert Novak. It continued with the formation of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) in August 2002 to sell the War to the American people. Was the White House Iraq Group still in existence in July 2003? Was it still having meetings when Wilson's Op-Ed piece appeared in the Times to poke a hole in their fabric of lies? Or is it just coincidence that at least three known WHIGs coordinated the response to Wilson? Isn't it this group that will tie the goals discussed in The Downing Street Memo clearly to the means used by Rove and Libby (and others? Card, Fleisher, Bolton, Cheney, Rice ... ? ) in trying to discredit Ambassador Wilson? The Times is wrong in its headline on today's article to say that a "2nd Issue Arises" in the case of Rove and Libby. This is all part of the same simple sad story of a war based on deceit. This isn't just the story of Rovegate that will end with the long-awaited frogmarch. This isn't just the story of Plamegate that will end with the names of two leakers.

Whiggate anyone?
True Blue Liberal