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View Full Version : S.F.Gate/Chron. Blame Joe Wilson(LIAR ALERT)



White_Male_Canada
09-02-2006, 01:28 AM
A case of mistaken identity
- Debra J. Saunders
Thursday, August 31, 2006

WITH the disclosure that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the initial source for Robert Novak's July 2003 column that outed CIA operative Valerie Wilson -- also known as Valerie Plame, wife of former ambassador and Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson -- it is now clear that all the hype about a Bush-inspired vendetta against the Wilsons is bunk.

The outing of Wilson was not an act of treason. It was not a deliberate effort to smear an administration critic. It was not an act of revenge orchestrated by Bush political guru Karl Rove. It was not an effort to hurt anyone's CIA career. It was gossip.

As Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, co-author of the book "Hubris" about the Wilson leak and Iraq pre-war intelligence, wrote, "Armitage, a well-known gossip who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters, apparently hadn't thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame's identity."

No one knows how much special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has spent in taxpayers' money investigating this leak, but figure the probe came with a hefty price tag because he has been in business since December 2003. We do know now, however, that when Fitzgerald set up shop, the secretary of State and someone at the Department of Justice knew that Armitage leaked the story. As Fitzgerald has failed to charge Armitage, it seems as though the leak was not a crime, which suggests that the investigation has been colossal waste of time and money...

The irony is that as Joe Wilson charged that the White House was pursuing him as an act of revenge, he emerges as a partisan bent on punishing those with whom he disagreed. Wilson, after all, once bragged that he wanted to see Rove "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." The Wilsons filed a silly lawsuit suit against Libby, Cheney and Rove.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/31/EDG0SJ7NHV1.DTL