Q for RW: What is the difference between "punishing" and "discrediting?"

The winger quoted below makes the distinction (you'll see how when you read it) in the Plame case. But the right wing has never credibly answered the question how Wilson is "discredited" by the fact that his wife (allegedly) was involved in sending him to Niger. Could the Bushists really have gone through such trouble because they seriously thought Wilson was claiming Cheney personally sent him and they wanted to make fun of the fact that it wasn't Manly Dick but lil ole Valerie Flame who sent him?

This is vaguely plausible if you agree with the wingers that it would matter to anybody left of the Left whether Manly Dick or Lil Ole Valerie sent Wilson to find out the Bushist's Niger claim was bogus. But why would anyone in their right mind think that, when it was becoming clearer by the day that there were no WMD in Iraq and hadn't been any since long before the invasion?

In short, even if you assume that the Bushists were too stupid to know it was a crime to out Valerie Wilson (which is entirely possible), there is absolutely no difference whatever between their kind of empty-centered discrediting of Wilson and punishment of him for being a war critic. In either case, the evil swine or stupid asses used Wilson's wife to get to him. I hope, if they don't rot in cells, that they rot in their own private hells for what they've done.


http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2005/10/point-to-remember.html

From the beginning of this case I have thought that the most interesting issue involved is one of motivation. In particular, it seems to me that only the most rabid of Bush haters (and therefore many Democratics and members of the extreme Left)--those who would believe this Administration capable of anything, no matter how depraved or insane--could possibly argue that there was a deliberate attempt to "punish" Joseph Wilson for speaking out against them by outing a CIA operative who happened to be his wife. Punish? Sorry, that is simply not credible.

Administration officials were not interested in punishing Wilson (who has been in this entire affair what could best be described as a "serial liar") as much as they were in discrediting what he had to say. And one way to discredit his credentials as a disinterested party was his "connection" to the CIA via his wife, who was the person who arranged for him to go on the secret mission to Niger-- not the VP office as he initially claimed.

What would be the point of anyone in the Bush Administration in "outing" Valerie Plame as an undercover agent? As has been demonstrated repeatedly, she was hardly "under cover" and it was well-known in Washington circles that she was employed by the CIA and was Wilson's wife.

The right bases all of it's arguments on unproven statements, talking points and flat out lies. If the administration truly wanted to discredit Wilson, all they had to do is prove him wrong. They didn't. They couldn't. End of story.