I was reading this scathing assessment of the Plame Game (and a real good slam on Mr. Ego himself, Joe Wilson), when it occurred to me that something major doesn’t add up. Armitage met with Novak on July 8th and discussed with him information that was in the July 7th INR memo which related who Joe Wilson was (at this time the mystery man behind many NY Times and Washington Post articles) and mentioned his wife’s job at the CIA and role in sending him. The memo seems to have been requested by Armitage or Libby to inform Colin Powell of the details of events (which is why I think it was Armitage who requested the memo). Marc Grossman, an apparent life-long associate of Joe Wilson, played a role in generating the memo.

That is all fine and good I guess, but it doesn’t add up. The memo was suppose to have been for Powell since he and Armitage were supposedly out of town. Was that on July 7th? The date of the memo is one day before Armitage is sitting in his office yacking it up with Novak.

And while that stretches the imagination a bit, the Woodward meeting is a complete mystery. That July 7th memo cannot explain the June 13th meeting between Bob Woodward and Armitage, where Tricky Dick was able to once again spill the details about Valerie and Joe Wilson. What kind of excuse did Armitage give Fitz-Magoo for how he learned about Plame prior to the INR memo? How did Armitage square nearly a month of prior knowledge about Plame before the memo? Is the memo even pertinent to this story? The timing seems wrong in both incidents. If so, Armitage may have played Fitzgerald like a gullible fool. Armitage may not have been innocently leaking to the reporters at all. Who knows. But it seems this long running investigation was not just a waste, it seems to have not done the task at hand.