I've been waiting on Robert Novak's response to Richard Armitage's revelations. I think it can be summed up this way -- Armitage is still trying to deceive America, and still lying -- but now that he has spoken out, Novak no longer feels obliged to kep silent in public.

First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he "thought" might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear that he considered it especially suited for my column.

An accurate depiction of what Armitage actually said deepens the irony of his being my source. He was a foremost internal skeptic of the administration's war policy, and I had long opposed military intervention in Iraq. Zealous foes of George W. Bush transformed me, improbably, into the president's lapdog. But they cannot fit Armitage into the left-wing fantasy of a well-crafted White House conspiracy to destroy Joe and Valerie Wilson. The news that he, and not Karl Rove, was the leaker was devastating for the left.

But I thin Novak's most telling point about Armitage's lack of integrity is found at the end of the column -- in a point I have made since his identity as the leaker became clear.

Armitage's silence for the next 2 1/2 years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source. When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's request, that does not explain his silent three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald's appointment on Dec. 30, 2003. Armitage's tardy self-disclosure is tainted because it is deceptive

Indeed. Why not come clean from the beginning -- if one truly wished to preserve faith in our government and its leaders, and not simply protect one's own sorry ass.

Posted by: Greg at 10:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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