1 Attachment(s)
Wilson/Powell/Armitage=Wrong(NYPost)
September 2, 2006 -- As the Plamegate "scandal" fades away, one question remains: How to do right by the principal victim of the farce - former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby?
The new book "Hubris" by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and The Nation's David Corn - hardly a flattering view of the Bush administration - completely unravels the notion that there was a broad institutional conspiracy to "out" putative CIA agent Valarie Plame Wilson for political reasons.
Yet that unfair accusation has led to the resignation and indictment of one high-ranking administration official and the smearing of others - and helped draw focus and energy away from the major challenges facing the president's team.
Robert Novak first revealed that Plame was a CIA "operative" in a July 2003 column. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, charged that the White House intentionally leaked his wife's identity as "revenge" for Wilson's efforts to paint the administration as having distorted facts in making the case for deposing Saddam Hussein.
Wilson claimed that the White House exposed his wife's undercover status - a federal crime - as part of a plot.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was named to examine the charge.
His probe of the administration led to Libby's indictment for lying to investigators, and his subsequent resignation.
Novak refused to publicly name his primary source - leading to three years of loony-left conspiracy-mongering.
Now, "Hubris" fingers Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as the leaker; his associates essentially confirmed it Tuesday.
Thus does the revenge theory collapse.
Armitage was no war hawk. Indeed, as Secretary of State Colin Powell's right-hand man, he - like his boss - opposed the invasion of Iraq.
"Hubris" portrays the naming of Valerie Plame as a casual comment - classic Washington-insider gossip.
Still, Powell emerges from all this as damaged goods - and rightly so.
He gets a call from his No. 2, who admits to leaking the Plame-Wilson info - the focus of a huge furor. But does Powell tell this to his boss, the president of the United States?
No.
Rather, according to Isikoff, Powell directed State Department counsel to give the White House a bare minimum of information - and to leave Armitage out of it. He let the investigation expand, fester and envelop the White House, the vice president's office and elsewhere.
In a time of war, when the president and his team needed to be fully focused on far bigger issues, the administration was distracted by a "non-scandal" that Colin Powell could have stopped at a moment's notice.
Though he has left the administration, Powell's betrayal by not speaking up has had major ramifications.
Lewis Libby shouldn't have lied to investigators, as he is alleged to have done. But the investigation should never have been launched in the first place. It was the product of wild charges from an embittered, partisan former official, combined with bad faith and lack of candor from the top two men at State.
The president should not let Libby - an otherwise honorable public servant - remain a scapegoat.
As others, including The Wall Street Journal, have noted, the president should pardon Libby. Let him move along with his life - and let the country put this sorry episode behind it.
Finally.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/ed...ditorials_.htm
