Wednesday, October 01, 2003

Ok, so she was maybe undercover.

(I'd say I find it hard to believe that she was undercover, given that you could find her name connected with the government in all sorts of places on the web before this broke, but let's be honest: The CIA couldn't off a cigar-smoking tyrant for decades of trying. This isn't surprising.)

Same stand as before: Find the ones who broke the law and punish them. But let's not pretend that this was an idea masterminded at the top -- neither Bush nor Rove nor any of the top guns are so stupid as to do something like this, if for no better reason than it was pointless.

UPDATE: Or maybe she wasn't. Novak comes out swinging:

The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.

[...]

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.
He adds that he was assured that she was no longer covert.

Thank God I don't watch TV. Or read Josh Marshall.

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