Friday - September 01, 2006

Final Curtain Call

In today’s Washington Post, buried on Page A20, is acknowledgement (finally) that Valerie Plame was “outed” by Richard Armitage and her husband, Joe Wilson, is the person most responsible for her “damaged career” at CIA.

Plame and Wilson filed a lawsuit July 13 against Vice President Cheney, presidential adviser Karl Rove and former vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, accusing the three of violating their constitutional rights in retaliation for Wilson’s criticism of President Bush.

That lawsuit has now proven to be completely unjustified and without merit. If you expect Wilson and Plame to now sue Richard Armitage, forget it, says Byron York at National Review. There is nothing to be gained by sueing Armitage.

The whole purpose of this sordid affair was to hurt the Bush Administration. It was never about a “spy who was outed”. That was all just propaganda from the Left and Wilson/Plame were willing accomplices in this trumped-up drama. At least the Washington Post is now admitting they were had. We must be thankful any time the LameStreamMedia admits their mistakes ...

End of an Affair
_{(WASHINGTON POST) - Friday, September 1, 2006}

We’re reluctant to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame’s cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.

Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him. Unaware that Ms. Plame’s identity was classified information, Mr. Armitage reportedly passed it along to columnist Robert D. Novak “in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip,” according to a story this week by the Post’s R. Jeffrey Smith, who quoted a former colleague of Mr. Armitage.

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House—that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame’s identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson—is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage’s identity been known three years ago.

That’s not to say that Mr. Libby and other White House officials are blameless. As prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has reported, when Mr. Wilson charged that intelligence about Iraq had been twisted to make a case for war, Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney reacted by inquiring about Ms. Plame’s role in recommending Mr. Wilson for a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, where he investigated reports that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium. Mr. Libby then allegedly disclosed Ms. Plame’s identity to journalists and lied to a grand jury when he said he had learned of her identity from one of those reporters. Mr. Libby and his boss, Mr. Cheney, were trying to discredit Mr. Wilson; if Mr. Fitzgerald’s account is correct, they were careless about handling information that was classified.

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame’s CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming—falsely, as it turned out—that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush’s closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It’s unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Posted by The Skipper     on 09/01/2006 at 08:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Media-Bias • Politics •  
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