Erin, I’m not clear on that point myself. The first guess I made was that the CIA had some kind of vested, possibly political, interest in demonstrating that there was no nuclear materials purchase by Iraq. But that was just a guess, and it doesn’t make a ton of sense (didn’t the CIA provide Bush and friends with a bunch of evidence of WMD in Iraq?).

The core thing from my perspective is the fact that Rove basically put the life of an American government agent in jeopardy all to score some political points. And even if that doesn’t shake you up, he put the life of a man’s *wife* in jeopardy. How can anyone, republican, democrat, or Alien party, not see that as wrong at the deepest level?