THE PLAME AFFAIR: LIES. DAMNED LIES AND POLITICS

WASHPOST (hat tip DRUDGE):

End of an Affair: It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband.

WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.

Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him. Unaware that Ms. Plame's identity was classified information, Mr. Armitage reportedly passed it along to columnist Robert D. Novak "in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip," according to a story this week by the Post's R. Jeffrey Smith, who quoted a former colleague of Mr. Armitage.

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue.

Wilson and Plame should be charged with treason: for partisan and personal gain they slandered the POTUS during war-time. Armitage should be charged with aiding and abetting. Fitzgerald should be disbarred.

Not only was the entire Plame Affair BS; but the original 16 words spoken by Bush in the SOTU (about British intel's awareness that Saddam had recently effrted to get uranium from Africa) remain true to this day.