I have refrained so far from commenting on the less-than-astonishing revelation that Richard Armitage was the source who told Robert Novak that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, engineered his mission to Niger. This leak was hyped by opponents of the Bush administration as something like the greatest national security breach of all time. What is still astonishing to me is that Armitage did not come forward publicly early in the investigation to disclose that he was Novak's source and that, after special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said, inaccurately, last October 28 that Scooter Libby was the first government official to disclose Plame's name, Armitage did not disclose that he had mentioned it to Bob Woodward a month or more before he had mentioned it to Novak.
Anyway, I yield the floor to the Washington Post, which in an editorial today succinctly summarized the controversy. Here's the last paragraph (though you should read the whole thing):
"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."
Last year I compared Joseph Wilson to Titus Oates, the liar who set off the popish plot controversy in England in 1678. The comparison seems more apt than ever.
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