THE NUKES....Laura Rozen writes about the bigger picture surrounding the smearing of Joe Wilson and the outing of Valerie Plame:

Rove and Libby weren't just telling reporters, 'Cheney doesn't know anything about Wilson's trip.' No. They created a fuller, alternative narrative: 'Cheney didn't know anything about Wilson's trip to Niger, because Wilson only got the trip as a boondoggle from his wife who works on unconventional weapons at the CIA.'

It may seem like an almost random side note that has cost them considerable trouble. But it wasn't random at all. As we know from recent reports surrounding the Fitzgerald investigation, the Vice President's office was leading an all-out propaganda war — every bit as choreographed as the pre-war propaganda campaign by the same officials — to blame the CIA for the fact that there weren't any WMD to be found in Iraq after all, and the chief stated reason for the war was collapsing. And it enlisted not just leaks to reporters about Valerie Plame to conduct that war against the CIA. It also enlisted key Republican officials in Congress....

The key-est of the key Republican officials, it turns out, is Pat Roberts, the obliging Cheney supporter who chairs the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. For more on all this, see:

• Larry Johnson on Niger, the White House, and those forged documents.
  

• Matt Yglesias on Iraq's lack of a nuclear weapons program.
  

• Kevin Drum on nukes and the base.
  

Remember, it's all about the nukes....