Plamegate Source = Armitage

[JayB]

Looks like case closed. Here's a pertinent quote from Isikoff and Corn, two reporters that can hardly be accused of pamphleteering on behalf of the administration:

 

"The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone."

 

Just thought I'd pass this news along.

[chucK]

Someone must have gotten to those guys

 

[mattp]

The outing of Armitage does change the contours of the leak case. The initial leaker was not plotting vengeance. He and Powell had not been gung-ho supporters of the war. Yet Bush backers cannot claim the leak was merely an innocent slip. Rove confirmed the classified information to Novak and then leaked it himself as part of an effort to undermine a White House critic. Afterward, the White House falsely insisted that neither Rove nor Libby had been involved in the leak and vowed that anyone who had participated in it would be bounced from the administration. Yet when Isikoff and Newsweek in July 2005 revealed a Matt Cooper email showing that Rove had leaked to Cooper, the White House refused to acknowledge this damning evidence, declined to comment on the case, and did not dismiss Rove. To date, the president has not addressed Rove's role in the leak. It remains a story of ugly and unethical politics, stonewalling, and lies.

 

The Nation

[Fairweather]

Matt,

 

given your past hysterics regarding the Plame/Wilson affair and your penchant for Rove conspiracy, I would expect a little more contrition. Those three words you heretofore seem incapable of uttering... I - was - wrong. But I won't hold my breath. You spin just as well as anyone in the administration.

 

Carl Rove. Guilty until proven innocent:

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/s...true#Post510685

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/s...true#Post580582

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/s...true#Post587672

[mattp]

Fairweather, if you scroll back through some old threads you'll see many places where I've admitted making incorrect assumptions or factual errors. The above excerpt includes a clear admission that prior assumptions were wrong, but if it will make you feel better I'll roll on the ground and pee on myself. I feel so small about having been so terribly wrong. Rove is really a very nice guy and I've misunderstood him all these years.

[Dechristo]

Rove is really a very nice guy and I've misunderstood him all these years.

 

Though, you may be his quarry should you accompany him on a dove hunt.

[mattp]

Thanks for the warning. I called him to apologize for maligning him, and he said not to worry - then invited me to a little barbeque at his place.

[archenemy]

Thanks for the warning. I called him to apologize for maligning him, and he said not to worry - then invited me to a little barbeque at his place.

I'd be suspicious of "a little BBQ"

[mattp]

He said "not to worry." I think he's a really nice guy, and very sincere.

[archenemy]

I couldn't agree more. And hey, we all deserve to be skewered every now and then.

[chucK]

Fairweather and Matt,

You should read the David Corn link more carefully before you absolve Rove. Maybe check out that Hubris book too!

 

Here's a link for more exciting reading on the subject!

[archenemy]

And don't forget to bring the steaks.

[mattp]

Oh gosh. I'm so confused. You mean Rove is a bad guy after all? And Corn even said so?

 

Fairweather: Help! I peed on myself and now it seems you didn't have your facts straight after all, nor did I. Any advice? How do I get the stain out?

[JoshK]

Phew...case closed. Now I can go back to liking Rove again. After all, it was just this one thing that had changed my mind about him.

[archenemy]

I think I like Corn better.

[counterfeitfake]

Carl who?

[lI1|1!]

you guys just need to read about this in the more liberal liberal media (nytimes):

 

snip

 

Mr. Armitage knew that, the accounts continue, because he had seen a written memorandum by Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman.

 

Mr. Grossman had taken up the task of finding out about Ms. Wilson after an inquiry from I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby’s inquiry was prompted by an Op-Ed article on May 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof and an article on June 12, 2003, in The Washington Post by Walter Pincus.

 

The two articles reported on a trip by a former ambassador to Africa sponsored by the C.I.A. to check reports that Iraq was seeking enriched uranium to help with its nuclear arms program.

 

Neither article identified the ambassador, but it was known inside the government that he was Joseph C. Wilson IV, Ms. Wilson’s husband. White House officials wanted to know how much of a role she had in selecting him for the assignment.

 

/snip

 

read between the lines. armitage was just grossman's dupe. grossman was working for libby. libby is cheney's lapdog.

 

the black choppers are still real.

[The_Rooster]

I think I like Corn better.

 

Me too!

[JayB]

Washington Post Editorial

 

"End of an Affair

 

It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband.

Friday, September 1, 2006; Page A20

 

 

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."

[kix]

yawn.

[Crux]

"But I didn't eat any corn!"

[mattp]

Sadly, someone might read Jay's editorial and find it convincing.

[foraker]

Irrespective of the Plamegate story, quoting a WaPo oped is pretty much the same as quoting an apologist for the Bush administration.

[JayB]

Sadly, someone might read Jay's editorial and find it convincing.

 

Which part is incorrect? Is the editorial at odds with the factual basis of Corn et. al's summary?

[mattp]

"Liar" would be closer to the mark than "apologist." Wilson did pretty much debunk the Niger Uranium story and, although his report may not have been circulated to the Whitehouse, they received a phone call and a memo from Tenet, the Director of the CIA, asking them to remove the matter from the President's speeches because it was probably false. Our man Bush continued to make the charge. The OpEd is not apologizing for anything, it is actively trying to deceive the reader.

 

Were you, Jay, actually convinced - at any time - that Wilson should not have brought his knowledge that the President lied about the Uranium to the public eye?