Captain’s Quarters does a fine job of de-constructing the NYT piece. There’s much that’s new and of value (at least to those of us who have fixated on this tempest in a teapot and insist on reading the tea leaves).

I was particularly struck by this Q & A:

[W]hy was Plame so set on using her husband for the job [the mission in Niger]? Wilson told the SSIC[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence] that she had characterized the initial report of Iraq-Niger contacts as “crazy”. After Wilson returned, he reported that the Iraqis had indeed tried to start trade talks in secret with Niger, and that the Nigerian PM believed that to be an effort to get yellowcake uranium. However, after the invasion of Iraq, Wilson started leaking a warped version to journalists such as Walter Pincus, also described in the SSIC report and determined to be false.

It looks like Plame wanted a specific result from the Niger investigation, and she selected the man who she felt would guarantee it.