Media Misses the Point On C.I.A. Leak Story

To observe the Washington press corps is to wonder why so many people who don’t remember what happened yesterday and can’t master basic logic are expected to analyze politics and policy. The latest developments in the Valerie Plame Wilson case—as revealed in Hubris, a new book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn—proved once more that the simplest analysis of facts is beyond the grasp of many of America’s most celebrated journalists.

What Messrs. Corn and Isikoff reveal, among other things, is that the first official to reveal Valerie Wilson’s covert identity as a C.I.A. operative to columnist Robert Novak in June 2003 was Richard Armitage, who then served as Deputy Secretary of State. Unlike other Bush administration figures who were involved in leaking Ms. Wilson’s identity, such as Karl Rove and Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Mr. Armitage was known to be unenthusiastic about the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

From those two facts, numerous pundits and talking heads have deduced that Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby were guiltless, that there was no White House effort to expose Ms. Wilson, and that the entire leak investigation was a partisan witch hunt and perhaps an abuse of discretion by the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald. The same pundits now proclaim that Mr. Armitage’s minor role somehow proves the White House didn’t seek to punish Valerie Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, for his decision to publicly debunk the Presidential misuse of dubious intelligence from Niger concerning Iraq’s alleged attempts to purchase yellowcake uranium.

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