I say that Armitage’s mea culpa is bullshit. It is a typical limited hang out; like Haldeman for Nixon 30 years ago.

The confirmation of Mr. Armitage’s role, long the subject of news media speculation, showed that the initial leak of Ms. Wilson’s identity did not originate from the White House as part of a concerted political attack against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had criticized the administration over the Iraq war. Rather it was divulged by a senior State Department official who was not regarded as a close political ally of Mr. Cheney or other presidential aides involved in the underlying issues in the case.

This is The New York Times conclusion, setting the meme that will â€clear†the Administration? I thought Armitage was in the Administration. He is an arch-operatative for the government promoting U.S. objectives abroad for decades. Oh, yeah. He was in the State Department and not in the White House, so that makes him not a part of this administration?

Do New York Times writers and editors even take Poly Sci 101?

But if Armitage really said nothing more than, â€she works at the agency,†then Novak’s really full of shit.

It’s just extraordinary. If Armitage really didn’t tell or intimate to Novak that Wilson’s wife sent him or suggested him or whatever, then Novak’s story just can’t stand up – his story of how he got to the claims in his initial column, but also note that he needs to explain how he could be making just that claim to Wilson’s friend on the street later in the day on July 8, apparently before talking to Rove and after talking Armitage.

And Tom’s syllogism for how Novak got to â€operative†can’t get off the ground.

I suspect Armitage is not giving the full story in this regard. It’s almost certain, in my judgment, that Armitage did mention that she worked on WMD – he did so with Woodward, so I suspect the same with Novak. But did he or did he not intimate or say that she was involved in Wilson’s selection?

I think the idea that Armitage consciously took the fall for the administration is pretty far-fetched. That may be the consequence of what happened, but I don’t think that’s how Armitage planned it to play out.

In terms of the idea of Fitz letting him speak only now, I didn’t interpret it quite that way. I think Armitage could have been forthcoming at anytime he wanted in the past several months, but he chose to time it around the publication of Hubris for some reason. He basically admitted he could have come forward sooner. He was probably using the FBI/Fitz â€request†as a crutch to avoid talking about it sooner.

I know I wouldn’t want to be judged on the basis of my own screw-ups, but I think Armitage comes across as a colossal dipshit in all of this. He didn’t even know he was leaking info two separate times. As EW says, if Armitage didn’t think he was Novak’s source in mid-July–when the story was all over the place–there’s even less reason for him to think he was his source over 2 months later.

Armitage got a very favorable piece on the nightly news where he got to look like such a remorseful stand-up guy who always wants to tell the truth and do what is right. When asked if he wanted to apologize to the Wilsons, he said, â€I think I just did.†Well, no, actually, he didn’t. I’d love to know if Joe and Valerie have heard from him or not, because I didn’t see an explicit apology in the interview. I wonder if his little performance just torpedoed the Wilsons’ civil suit. If he doesn’t still ahve a lawyer, the Wilson’s ought to sue his ass, too. (I know Byron York said they’re not suing Armitage, but I saw one of their lawyers say they were still considering it.)

Speaking of apologies, has Armitage apologized for his role in the war, yet?

OK, where is the Sandy Berger in this case?

All these people mishandled classified information and yet no one is charged for it? No one has to pay even a fine?

I see that Sandy Berger served as a media diversion for Rove when Rove was making all his statements and mis-statements to the FBI and then all those visits to the Grand Jury.

But Armitage and Ari Fleischer and who else don’t even get their wrists slapped? I realize that Libby will go on trial for lying about it but not for mishandling classified info.

What exactly is Fitzgerald doing with all this?

I think it’s almost certain that everything Armitage about Plame was contained in the INR memo. The only question is what’s contained in the redacted sentence in the paragraph that mentions Valerie Wilson (e.g., did it mention the Counterproliferation Department). The clear scenario for both Woodward and Novak is that Armitage read that paragraph, thought, â€Hmm, that’s an odd coincidence,†and mentioned it to both reporters. He likely was not any more definite about Plame authorizing Wilson’s trip than the memo itself was.

It seems fairly clear that Novak was â€seeded†with information about Plame before he talked to Armitage, who wound up being a scapegoat (and, at the furthest reach of probability, even confessing to a crime he didn’t commit).

This event has given us a little peep-hole into how Washington and the media work, and, my God, all I see from top-to-bottom is confused incompetence.

I shudder to think how true this probably is.

I

emptywheel,

dreams are hard to let go. You could have been right. It is like one of those mystery stories that every new scene gives out a new clue, and on and on, and you know that your are right, but then finally a conclusive bit of evidence or even a confession by someone who doesn’t appear to be insane.

What about what Novak said in July 2003 before there was any hint of an investigation:
Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. â€I didn’t dig it out, it was given to me,†he said. â€They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.â€

Novak admitted to saying the quoted words, but denied saying that his sources came to him.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/AL…..zer.novak/

Neither Armitage nor Rove’s reported conversation with Novak meets the â€they thought it was significant†part. And if Rove just confirmed what Novak said then it does not meet the â€they gave me the name†part.

Sorry, the penny drops – â€His wife is at the CIA†does not equal â€His wife sent himâ€.

Fine, Armitage is full of it – if he had just read that INR memo, the idea that Wilson’s wife sent him should have been fresh in his mind.

And EW alerts me that Armitage makes some vague â€everyone knew†reference (shades of Colin Powell!). Well, at State who didn’t know about Wilson and Plame? Grossman got his memo, per Leopold (whatever…) there were six people in the room when Grossman went over it with Libby – everyone at State knew.

Taking this from a different direction – did these questions not occur to Fitzgerald? Yet here we are. Was the cover-up that tight, to did Armitage give slightly different testimony?

STILL PUZZLING ME: Novak said that he was planning a follow-up to his â€Enemies Within†column about the stupid Bush practice of putting Dems in sensitive spots by writing about Wilson. Yet it was his last question to Armitage? Pretty smooth interogation technique, maybe, but surely the Niger topic came up sooner.

And Armitage couldn’t guess that on July 8, any chit-chat about Wilson with a right-wing attack-hack like Novak might be fraught? He just mentions the wife?

C’mon.

[Novak’s] story already depends on the claim that, faced with one source saying Plame suggested Wilson, another doing nothing but confirming whatever it was that Armitage said, and a third saying in no uncertain terms that Plame didn’t suggest Wilson, he still chose to claim Plame sent Wilson.

Well, he reported that two Admin folk ssaid one thing, and the CIA said something else. Fair and balanced, and at a minimum the news value is that the Admin and the CIA remain at each others throats and firmly on different pages.

Tom

No, you’re giving Novak too much room to maneuver. According to Novak:

Armitage: his wife worked in nuclear nonproliferation [though this changes almost everytime Novak opens his mouth, is inaccurate, and doesn’t reflect the contents of the INR memo] at CIA and she suggested he go.

Rove: [in response to Novak prompt] Oh, you know that too.

Harlow: Mrs. Wilson did not suggest the mission by her husband, but she was asked to get him to do it by other by other people in the CIA.

One person told him she worked in WMD (assuming Novak’s version–and not Armtiage’s–is correct, one person confirmed however Novak characterized Plame’s role, and one disputed it.

If Armitage didn’t give Novak the WMD detail, then Novak’s entire story falls apart, because Rove wouldn’t have had anything to confirm (assuming of course you buy Novak’s larger narrative, which I don’t).

Swopa

Yes, I agree with you–there’s no way that should have been strong enough to make Novak go with this story.

Jim E

Don’t forget, Woodward has a tape of that. So he may have played it over when the leak becamse known (or, in my ripening suspicion, been tipped to do so by someone in the WH). But in principle, I think Armitage is probably suppressing at least the detail about a tie to WMD, which he did mention to Woodward.

pow wow

Geez, there’s more and more of that interview. Thanks. I’ll go check it out. Kind of makes my point about â€primary,†doesn’t it–Armitage’s only way of knowing is the say so of Robert Novak, after he had his clarifying call with Rove.

Here is what Woodward said about his leak experience:

I was first contacted by Fitzgerald’s office on Nov. 3 after one of these officials went to Fitzgerald to discuss an interview with me in mid-June 2003 during which the person told me Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst.

No apparent mention of a role in arranging the Niger trip, but a mention of her WMD connection.

Look, Armitage may have been less forthcoming a second time, but its not like he would never have linked Ms. Plame to WMDs.

And in the light of day I wonder if we are overthinking this (that would NEVER happen!) – we seem to be pondering two coversations whose real difference is very slight:

(1)
Q: Why did the CIA send Wilson?

A: â€I don’t know, but his wife works out thereâ€.

(2)
Q: Why did the CIA send Wilson?

A: â€I don’t know, but his wife works there, and she was involved.â€

My point is that answer (1) is a pretty much a non sequiter *unless* you intend to imply that the wife was involved in some fashion. (I suppose it could be taken as, â€His wife works there, ask herâ€, but Armitage probably did not expect Novak to do that.)

So my Big Finish – *maybe* Novak leapt to the implied conclusion, or (my bet) Armitage edited his memory for brevity and to reflect better on himself. So, my guess – Armitage said something like (2) but chose to remember it as the nearly identical (1).

But what about the WMD detail? OK, I still blame Armitage for a convenient memory; he told Woodward about WMDs, ergo he told Novak.

This, for example, from Armitage is absurd in the environment of July 8, 2003:

â€I had no real understanding I told Novak something of enormous interest,†he said.â€

As of July 8, discussions about Wilson and his July 6 op-ed were just chit-chat? Well, that is Libby’s defense, I suppose.

And as noted above, why would Armitage think he was a source if he had not disclosed something more than â€his wife works thereâ€? [Answer – he was *not* a key source and has been ensnared in Novak’s web of deceit. Well, since I think Novak may well have had secret CIA sources (just like he told Wilson), color me unsurprised.]

E.D. Hill on Fox & Friends this morning paraphrased Armitage as saying this: â€Uh, sorry. I’m the leaker. Karl Rove had *nothing* to do with this.â€

Ugh.

I suppose Plamegate is small potatoes compared to other things. 43% of Americans still think Saddam was involved in 9/11, for example. But as complicated as Plamegate is, certain aspects of it — such as the fact that Rove and Libby were up to their eyeballs in it — shouldn’t be that hard to keep straight. Of course, a partisan like Hill doesn’t want to keep it straight, but what’s Broder’s excuse? After reading Broder yesterday, it occured to me that we’re probably going to be seeing a hacktacular Richard Cohen column on this, too.

Tom

The nice thing about Richard Armitage is that he is one rare thing informed lefty and righty bloggers can reach some consensus on (which puts us at odds with what all the stupid journalists are concluding).

My point is that answer (1) is a pretty much a non sequiter *unless* you intend to imply that the wife was involved in some fashion. (I suppose it could be taken as, â€His wife works there, ask herâ€, but Armitage probably did not expect Novak to do that.)

So my Big Finish – *maybe* Novak leapt to the implied conclusion, or (my bet) Armitage edited his memory for brevity and to reflect better on himself. So, my guess – Armitage said something like (2) but chose to remember it as the nearly identical (1).

But what about the WMD detail? OK, I still blame Armitage for a convenient memory; he told Woodward about WMDs, ergo he told Novak.

I think that’s entirely possible. It’s even possible he’s backing away from explaining what kind of WMD affiliation he claimed because he feels like that would be outing Plame again. There’s not much reason to trust Armtiage more than Novak on this. But still, even taking Novak’s version, he still really had a remarkably shakey basis to make the claim that Valerie Plame, WMD specialist, arranged Wilson’s trip. One would still have to explain his odd choices to ignore more informed sources on this. (Unless you can find his secret CIA sources, who he says told him she was an analyst, though he didn’t call her an analyst.)

David Ignatious just repeated the press’ party line about Armitage on CSPAN.

EW,

what is the back story between Armitage and Plame and Wilson? Do we know?

If Plame was a player pre-war, and if Armitage was concerned (probably, Powell gave high-profile UN speech) then Armitage may have run across â€Plame†as Plame before May to July.

Was the surprise to Armitage in May-July that Plame was married to Wilson? Did that make it good gossip because Wilson was talking to reporters? Did Armitage want to discredit Wilson because his talk sullied Powell? Did Armitage have that in common with Libby and Rove? Did Libby and Rove know it because Woodward told them?

all these quotes are just a hall of mirrors. let fitzgerald and god sort out where each beam started.

what is certain (well, sound speculation) is this:

– rove and libby both contacted reporters about plame and prior to armitage

– cheney and junta had good reason to fear ALL the intelligence agencies because the junta knew they had fabricated the specific wmd details used to stampede the u.s. into an invasion

and

the junta knew that with hundreds of analysts working on iraq wmd’s, some group would come up with substantial counterarguments to their own.

– cheney had a well-known dislike of the cia

– cheney and junta assumed that when jos. wilson spoke in the times, he had, though pillow talk with the head of iraqi wmd research, more knowledge than merely that about uranium from niger.

– cheney was secdef when wilson was in iraq during the first gulf war. he had a sense of wilson’s personality.

– cheney and junta had motive and means (white house iraq group) to try to damage plame.

– cheney and junta did manage to disclose plame’s cia activities.

it was not armitage that acted to harm wilson or plame. it was the cheney junta and WHIG.

– in doing so, the junta sends a warning to the cia and other intelligence agencies that others of their PROGRAMS could be in danger if they raised doubts about the administration’s war rationale.

– tenent’s personal relationship was with bush, not cheney.

about armitage:

– he was a powell loyalist

– he is no innocent. he has a rep as a skilled bureaucratic warrior as strong as that of cheney, libby, and addington.

– he ain’t just off the bus from dumbfuck west texas like bush and rove.

i simply can not understand how armitage’s defense against releasing plames’s name gets him out of legal trouble.

the â€i’m a notorious gossip†defense has no substance to it at all.

so, why no penalty for armitage? because he led Fitzgerald thru the thicket of Washington bureaucracy?

in any event, the bottom line is

armitage had no motive to harm wilson or plame, quite to the contrary.

the cheney junta had motive and means to harm plame and the cia, and they did.

Does anyone now how to capture for eternity a link to or some version of the full interview with cbs, so that it does not disappear? pow wow?

I think I’ve boiled my confusion down to the following questions:

Is Armitage off the hook because he didn’t know Plame was covert and only told Novak she â€worked†for the CIA?

Would Fitz have the imagination to realize Novak might have been told to contact Armitage as a cover for the real leakers?

Is Rove going to skate because though he leaked, he wasn’t the PRIMARY leaker? Or because Fitz can’t prove he leaked Plame’s covert status? Or because he’s cooperating to avoid perjury charges and throwing Cheney under the bus?

If Rove rolled on Cheney, did he do so because he knew Bush would order Gonzalez to order Fitz not to indict the Veep?

If Fitz received such an order, would he resign in protest? Or would he be a good soldier and continue the investigation simply as part of prosecuting Libby for perjury, etc.?

I realize none of the above can be answered definitively at the moment, but I’d sure love some best guesses…

Jeff – If you rightclick the â€CIA Leak Source Tells All†title of the clip in the left margin of cbsnews.com, you can choose to bookmark a link to the clip or to copy the link location, but of course I have no idea how long that link will remain valid. In some browser set-ups I think you may instead be given a choice of a â€quick download†of the video clip with a right click – but in what format that would be I also don’t know. So you’ve got the right idea, but I’m probably not the one to ask for definitive advice on how to preserve this video. Maybe a comment over at Crooks and Liars would inspire them to capture it, or one of their readers to transfer it to YouTube, if possible.

Yes, ew, that quote from Armitage really highlights your point about the lack of evidence for the â€initial and primary†source assertion Armitage seems so intent on getting out there. And now we know that by the second day of the official DOJ investigation, we already had an investigator questioning this seemingly voluntary assertion by Armitage that he was the very first person to tell Bob Novak this news. I completely fail to understand the reason that Armitage was and is so intent on emphasizing this â€thought†of his, unless he is part of the/a cover-up of an underlying conspiracy to get the information out. [So at this point, while I think Fitzgerald was able to pretty effectively dismantle Rove’s cover story, it looks to me like Armitage’s cover story – even though suspected from literally day one – has so far not been significantly pierced by the investigation, which is why Armitage has avoided legal jeopardy to date.]

The trap worked! Now Tom need merely apply the idea to Scooter Libby and Judith Miller.

LOL – I at least loked at it before I stepped in, which was why I added â€As of July 8, discussions about Wilson and his July 6 op-ed were just chit-chat? Well, that is Libby’s defense, I suppose.

But yes, I am skating out into an area where I am designating some folks as opportunistic liars but not others. That would bother me more if I were a table-pounding defender of Libby or Miller.

I actually do believe [Armitage] didn’t know she was covert.

I’ll go along, *but* – he may still have met her in the run-up to Powell’s speech, without any notice of her status – its an interesting idea, although it doesn;t seem to take us far.

Novak said in his column it all started July 6. He got an appointment with Armitage two days later. Someone expedited the appointment, because someone had something urgent they wanted to get to Novak.

Hmm. And someone had something they wanted to get frok Armitage. Yet it comes up as a throwaway line at (or near) the end of a wide-ranging chat.

Any reason to think the Novak-Aarmitage interview was not already set up *before* July 6?

And now we know that by the second day of the official DOJ investigation, we already had an investigator questioning this seemingly voluntary assertion by Armitage that he was the very first person to tell Bob Novak this news. I completely fail to understand the reason that Armitage was and is so intent on emphasizing this â€thought†of his, unless he is part of the/a cover-up of an underlying conspiracy to get the information out.

Wel, if I were an investigator, I would certainly ask Armitage to keep quiet – his thinking he is first is interesting, but I would want to, at a minimum, talk to Novak before reaching a conclusion. And I would want Armitage (and Novak) quiet so that stories were not aired and compared in the press.

And don’t I recall that Novak-Rove traded calls on the 8th and finally spoke on the 9th? And IIRC, Novak-Harlow was the 10th. Which makes the sidewalk incident even weirder.

The Novak appointment was set up in June, per Hubris.

In late June, Robert Novak got word that a senior government official–someone he had been trying to interview for some time–had finally agreed to see him. The official was Armitage, the deputy secretary of state. For all his years in Washington, Novak didn’t have a relationship with Armitage. But he knew that Armitage was the perfect source to talk about intrigue within the Bush administration, particularly the bitter clashes between Colin Powell’s State Department and the hawks in the Pentagon and the vice president’s office.

In getting his interview request approved, Novak may have received behind-the-scenes help from another well-connected Washington player: Ken Duberstein, former chief of staff in Ronald Reagan’s White House and now one of the capital’s premier power brokers and lobbyists. Dubersteing was a confidant of Powell’s. (The secretary affectionately called him â€Duberdog.â€) Duberstein would later tell others that, while chatting with Novak about Powell, he had told the columnist, if you really want to know how Colin Powell is doing, you should take to Rich; he’s running things day to day at the State Department. Duberstein said he would make a phone call and help smooth the way.

Novak would later not remember the conversation with Duberstein and profess to be unaware of his intervention. But he was happy and a little surprised, when his interview request suddenly came through toward the end of June. It wouldn’t happen right away, however. Novak’s meeting with Armtiage was scheduled for a couple of weeks later–right after the July 4 holiday. (251-252)

And don’t I recall that Novak-Rove traded calls on the 8th and finally spoke on the 9th? And IIRC, Novak-Harlow was the 10th. Which makes the sidewalk incident even weirder.

Exactly right, according to the official version of events we’ve got. This is the thing that makes no sense to me. Novak comes across as rather emphatic in the rendition of his performance of on the sidewalk on the afternoon of July 8 with the stranger who turned out to be Wilson’s friend. It is puzzling enough how Novak arrived at the formulation of his column – that Wilson’s wife suggested him for the mission – if Armitage didn’t say anything to that effect and Rove simply said, â€I’ve heard that too,†or â€You know about it too.†But it is almost incomprehensible how Novak could say to Wilson’s friend on July 8 – after having talked only to Armitage – that â€She sent him.â€

And note that Armitage says that when Novak asked him why the CIA sent Ambassador Wilson, he responded, â€I don’t know, but his wife works out at the Agency,†or, presumably, words to that effect. The point is that if Armitage really prefaced his comment about Wilson’s wife by saying, â€I don’t know,†I can see no way on earth that Novak could take that to mean, â€She sent him,†or even â€She suggested him for the trip.†Did Armitage perhaps conveniently leave out the fact that he ended his comment with something like, â€She works out at the Agency, maybe she sent him,†or â€maybe she suggested him for the trip.â€

One other fascinating thing: recall that Libby’s testimony almost exactly parallels Armitage’s story, except that the question was different. According to his testimony, when asked by Cooper why Wilson thought the Vice President asked for his trip or whatever, Libby responded he didn’t know, by he’d heard his wife worked at the Agency and maybe Wilson got some bad skinny from people he knew through her.

Thanks, pow wow. I couldn’t get that to quite work – the link is just some javascript void thing. But maybe someone will memorialize it on the all-powerful Youtube.

Trying to turn off bold.

In another interesting note, both Hubris and the new SSCI report ignore the fact that the White Paper on MBLs was leaked to Judy Miller on May 19, thereby pre-empting the international experts investigating the MBLs.

Could be, tnhblog.

But if Novak knew of the interview in June (he apparently did, though he says he doesn’t remember this), and if he met with Libby someone in OVP about the Frances Fragos Townsend smear in the interim period (he seems to have), he may have mentioned the upcoming interview.

Jeff – to the best of my knowledge CBS will not let you download the video and will only let you play it on their page (which as you mention they can remove at any time). You may want to inquire if they will sell you a copy. If it were a podcast you could download it (the audio). Someone correct me if I am wrong.

And could someone tell me how to turn on and off italics and boldface.

It’s a few pages worth. It is sourced to interviews with Adam Levine (who called Matthews first), with Russert, and with Neal Shapiro.

Here’s an excerpt:

When Wolfowitz had run into a Hardball producer at the White House correspondants’ dinner two months earlier, he had said contemptuously that he would never go on Hardball because of what Matthews had been saying. But for Libby, it had become personal. Thanks to Matthews, he was getting international publicity–and not the kind he wanted. At some point, US intelligence picked up â€chatter†about possible threats against Libby, according to a close friend of Libby who discussed the matter with him. Libby said he had been forced to adopt security measures. He worried about his family. And he seemed to blame all this on Matthews and his attacks. Matthews â€was his bete noire,†the friend said.

Also of note–they interviewed Novak, who said his phone call with Rove â€may have†taken place on July 8 (of course they only mention this in the notes). What a lying sack of old crap. He had two conversations with Rove, and Novak is only reporting the one that occured on July 9, so as to shield Rove from being responsible for the friends conversation.

Pete –

Brackets at the beginning and brackets-with-a-slash at the end of each phrase you want highlighted, is the generic format for all features. Then you specify a specific feature:

For italics use i within at the beginning and /i within the brackets to close the highlighting.

For bold use b within to begin and /b within to close.

These are intriguing excerpts, ew – sounds like there’s more â€news†in this book than the corporate press has discovered and reported in total with regard to this investigation in over a year. And Jeff, that is an eyebrow-raising point about the similarity in how Libby and Armitage ’let it slip’…

Here’s another interesting tidbit.

He says, â€If everyone had done that [told the truth] and made the materials available, I think Mr. Fitzgerald could have finished this in a much shorter time frame.â€

It’s at about 7:50.

Think he’s referring to Turdblossom or Libby?

Re Out of Africa:

Does the CBS interview make it clear that Armitage thinks that she worked at the CIA? I guess it must or he really wouldn’t have thought of himself as a source for Novak.

Well, the interview discusses her odd appearance in the INR memo, where she is described as (I paraphrase) a CIA managerial type working on WMDs.

â€â€¦I think Mr. Fitzgerald could have finished this in a much shorter time frame.â€

But Strobell writes that the investigation hasn’t finished.

EW, when Armitage said:
He says, â€If everyone had done that [told the truth] and made the materials available, I think Mr. Fitzgerald could have finished this in a much shorter time frame.â€

Did he happen to mention (or was he asked) when he turned in his date book and his wife’s computer?

Maybee

No, but the implication of it is he did it from the start.

Maybee

No, but the implication of it is he did it from the start.

Thanks, ew.

TM-You cover my thoughts in that post. But this: My guess: in October, investigators were focusing on July, not June.
I suppose the new improved July date on the INR might have helped steer the investigators, no?