September 15, 2006
More on Plame Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 10:25 PM EST I’m well behind in the conversation thread here on the American Heritage blog, but having been chastised by a dear friend for my dereliction of editorial duty (it’s been some time since I’ve posted), I feel compelled to respond to John Steele Gordon’s post of about a week ago concerning “Plamegate.” Mr. Gordon writes that “Plamegate is a classic case of an all-smoke-no-fire Washington kerfuffle.” More specifically, he claims that the columnist “[Robert] Novak got his information from an inadvertent leak by Richard Armitage, then number two at the State Department and no friend of the Bush White House. More, Fitzgerald had known this from the very day he took office.” In fact, I don’t know that recent developments in the case make Plamegate any clearer. Quite to the contrary, they muddy the waters. According to today’s New York Times, Novak disputes Richard Armitage’s account of their now-famous interview, in which the then-deputy secretary of state leaked Plame’s identity. According to Novak, Armitage “did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear that he considered it especially suited for my column.” Novak further writes, “He [Armitage] told me unequivocally that Ms. Wilson had worked in the C.I.A.’s Counterproliferation Division and that she had suggested her husband’s mission.” Novak’s description of his conversation with Armitage follows on the heels of other revelations about the case—for instance, that Armitage may also have leaked Plame’s identity to Bob Woodward (which would seem to discredit his claim to have made an inadvertent slip), and that the State Department was well aware of Armitage’s role in outing Plame but kept silent on the matter. Moreover, that Armitage identified Plame as an official with the C.I.A.’s Counterproliferation Division seems pretty serious to me. Now, I’m as confused as Mr. Gordon about the motivations behind the federal prosecutor’s probe. But I don’t see how this month’s coverage exonerates or implicates anyone. To invoke a horridly corny expression, the jury is still out.
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