Jan 28 2006
Russert, Mitchell and Libby
I was going to post about Tim Russert’s clear admission on TV that Wilson and Plame were discussed prior to Novak’s column being printed, but Tom Maguire beat me to it. So check out Tom’s site to see how much fun Andrea Mitchell and Tim Russert are going to have paying lawyers.
One thing I will say. If Russert and Mitchell tried to hide their discussions about Valerie and Joe I find that an interesting but marginal issue. What I want to see is Pincus and Kristof brought out for using Valerie and a source and then pretending no one else knew about her role after Wilson shopped his story around town.
My expectations is all sources lead to one person in the State Department who tried to connect Wilson to reporters. And each of those reporters was let in on Wilson’s details as he presented the story. And that person at State could have been associated with a certain Presidential Campaign having the initials JFK.
To me, this is the bigger story.
Whisper that name in my ear, dear.
Well, as long as no one else is listening…
We have two candidates. Tom Maguire thinks it is Richard Armitage, many here have suspicions it is Rand Beers
Previous posts here, here and here
I lean Beers because I do not think Armitage would torpedo Powell like that. Just seems so out of character.
Clarice,
I should add Wilkerson to the candidate list as another source. But I doubt he would undermine Powell like that.
Wasn’t Armitage the one who said that Iran was a democracy? I think that it could be Armitage just because he may not have had any idea the ramifications of his statements and actions.
On the other hand, Beers did have motive and opportunity….
Beers wasn’t at DoS ..he was with the NSC. I do think he shopped Wilson around. I think Clarke may have, too. Clarke was lured to the Kerry campaign and in turn induced Beers to leave the NSC and join him.
I think Armitage leaked to Woodward, but that may have been more an interagency thing between DoS and CIA.
I think Plame and Wilson were well known to people at DoS and they may have told Andrea Mitchell the connection.
I do not think there was a sole person at DoS behind this–just a confluence of social chatterers and people at odds with the CIA re the INR.
No reason to single one out, they were all against Bush and were all involved with the two Joes… Wilson and Lockhart. They all wanted a peice of the Kerry Pie, er Presidency, er, Administration.
Would you just single out one Newspaper Reporter? One Alphabet Soup Talking Head? One Democratic Operative? Then why would you say it is just one “Former Administration Official”?
BTW, Fitz sucks.
I think AJ is right about getting to Kristof and Pincus to get to the real story.They’ve both been a little cocky about what and when they knew. My suspicion of Pincus arose from his notion his leaker was not intending harm and didn’t believe him at the same time.
Does that make sense to you? If you didn’t believe him then you believe he is not telling you the truth, so that most likely would be harmful. If you didn’t believe but don’t think your source is being harmful (like lying on purpose) then what basis do you have to know that a high ranking official (presumably more informed on inter-admin happenings than Walter Pincus) would be so dumb or uninformed as to tell you something you could not believe?
There is just too much hanging there to not make one wonder.
I wish someone would ask him why he didn’t believe his source? What basis did he have to not beleive a source.
the Point I am driving at, is if pressed on this it would be easy to see the reason he was unmoved by his governmental source (he learnt nothing he didn’t already know). His source must’ve been irked with him. He didn’t intend or expect on Pincus resurrecting him 3 months later in order for Pincus shift focus from Pincus amazing insights (from the forgery comments and the debriefing)
This is the sort of shifty word play I deplore in journalists.