Armitage's error doesn't excuse others

[struggle4progress]

He made a mistake, but Cheney, Rove, Libby have no excuse

To hear Bush administration defenders tell it, news that Richard Armitage was the original source of the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA work means the entire Plamegate tempest was a whole lot of nothing. That spin should be a tough sell, if folks pay attention to the facts.

Armitage is a former Navy officer who served .. under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. In chitchat at the end of a conversation with newspaper columnist Robert Novak in 2003, while deputy secretary of state, Armitage let slip that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson, worked at the CIA. Armitage apparently did not know Plame's CIA work was undercover and classified ..

Novak needed confirmation of Armitage's information. He got it from Rove. Between them, Rove and Libby peddled the story to various Washington reporters, insinuating that Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger to investigate possible Iraq purchases of uranium was a junket arranged by his wife -- and that Wilson was a has-been showboat who just wanted a free trip to Africa, where he had worked as a U.S. diplomat.

Wilson may be a showboat, but he is also an experienced African hand who was sent on a legitimate mission by the CIA (not by his wife), and convincingly disproved the Niger-Iraq uranium stories central to the Bush case for war -- stories Bush used long after he had reason to know they were false. For that, the White House tried to smear him, and it used liberally the opening provided inadvertently by Armitage. Libby apparently lied about the effort and got caught. The others may not have broken federal law, but they certainly showed, if anyone needed further proof, how low they will stoop to smear a critic rather than argue an issue on its merits.

http://www.startribune.com/561/story/648794.html

Another "strange mix" -- Since Armitage has been around long enough to play Beltway Baseball well, it is unlikely that he "accidently" leaked Plame's name, though he may well have been around long enough to cover his own ass convincingly. But the editorial does note the coordinated work by a White House already after Plame and Wilson ...

[Warpy]

1. Who told Armitage?

He didn't have clearance.

We're back to square one.

This is just a smoke screen.

[Igel]

2. He didn't have clearance?

Deputy Sec. of State didn't have clearance to read a document that didn't reveal Plame's status?

[Warpy]

3. Now why would a flunky who was a notorious gossip

have access to that type of information?

He certainly didn't need to know it, and such information is dispensed on a need to know basis.

It all goes back to Cheney and probably Stupid.

[Igel]

4. Because he was deputy secretary of

state, and probably saw that now infamous background summary of Wilson's trip that referred to her as Valerie Wilson. I'm assuming that few such reports wouldn't have been available to him.

The NOC business is strictly need to know, and after he blurted, he realized he developed a need to know.