The Washington Post reports on the battle between Novak (who is looking out for Cheney, Rove and Scooter) and Armitage (who never was quite right wing enough for the hard core). Let's face it, not like you can trust any of this crowd to really be honest about this. And, let's remember what happened here: During the time of war, these Bush administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative for purely partisan political reasons. In World War II, Roosevelt would have had them in the brig. Under Bush, there are no ramifications:
Columnist Robert D. Novak, who first revealed Valerie Plame's employment by the CIA and touched off a lengthy federal leak investigation, is accusing his primary source of misrepresenting their conversation to make the source's role in the disclosure seem more casual than it was.The right wing punditry in unison are trying to downplay and dismiss this issue. Some in the traditional media have fallen for it. These guys all did something very wrong. Just imagine how apoplectic the wingnuts would be if this had happened during a Democratic administration. There would have been impeachment hearings already.
In an unusual column that appears today, Novak says his initial source, former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage, was more sure of Plame's ties to the CIA than the source has indicated. Novak adds that Armitage linked her directly to her husband's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger and suggested the disclosure would be a good item for Novak's column.
This differs from Armitage's assertions last week that his disclosure was made in an offhand manner and that he did not know why Plame's husband was sent to Niger.
Armitage, in an interview yesterday, said he stood by his account and disputed Novak's.
