A Plame-gate Aftermath Roundup...
Coulter:... Fitzgerald's entire investigation was nothing but a perjury trap from beginning to end for anyone who misremembered anything about who told whom what about a low-level nobody at the CIA who happened to be married to a Walter Mitty fantasist.
... These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.
... 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.
... I just cannot believe we all had to waste this much time talking about such a stupid story. By now, anyone outside the Beltway and the blogs has forgotten what started it in the first place and has only a vague feeling that the Bush administration did something sneaky to that Plame lady, and there was something about "frog marching." Oops, didn't mean to leave anyone with the wrong impression, right guys? Riiiight.
Ever since the "controversy" was ignited by Bush enemies like Joseph Wilson three years ago, The New York Times has run almost 40 front-page stories on the leak of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame (Wilson's wife, who recommended Wilson be sent to Africa to investigate claims of uranium shopping by Iraq) to Robert Novak. But now that the prime anti-Bush angle has fizzled out, the Times has been notably reluctant to return to the scene of the non-crime.
This Saturday, the Times finally put the Plame-gate aftermath on the front page, in an interesting piece by David Johnston, "Leak Revelation Leaves Questions - Prosecutor Knew Identity but Still Pushed Inquiry." ...
... Before Plamegate disappears into the ether, take a trip down memory lane by revisiting this dKos diary from June describing the author’s breathless encounter at Yearly Kos with the world’s most reclusive, publicity-shy lying media whore. “We actually have a conversation with Joseph Wilson. With Joseph Wilson!” Oh, and this too; you’re looking for their grand entrance at the very beginning and Colby’s mention of Plame towards the end. Four months later, the fact that he stood there and blamed Bush for her cover being blown turns out to be the one funny part of that routine. ...
The rogues' gallery of those who acted badly in the CIA "leak" case turns out to be different from what the media led us to expect. Note that we put the word "leak" in quotation marks, because it's clear now there was no leak at all, just idle talk, and certainly no smear campaign against Joseph Wilson for criticizing President Bush's Iraq policy. It's as if a giant hoax were perpetrated on the country - by the media, by partisan opponents of the Bush administration, even by several Bush subordinates who betrayed the president and their White House colleagues. The hoax lingered for three years and is only now being fully exposed for what it was. Let's start at the top of the rogues' list: ...What media bias?
Update: Armitage: "I screwed up". Big time.
Labels: Iraq, Media, Robert Novak
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