Friday, September 01, 2006

"IT'S UNFORTUNATE THAT SO MANY PEOPLE TOOK HIM SERIOUSLY"   [Byron York]

How should one react to this?  The Washington Post has now declared the CIA leak "scandal" a non-story — and has come to the realization that is was pretty much a non-story all along.  Its editorial criticizes Richard Armitage for remaining silent while other administration officials were pilloried publicly, and it lays much of the final blame for the mess on the man who styled himself the victim:

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming — falsely, as it turned out — that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

Well, yes, it is.  The Post editorial says the paper was "reluctant" to revisit the whole Plamegate affair.  Certainly other commentators, some of whom pushed the story very hard, now don't want to talk about it.  The New York Times editorial page, which was positively hysterical about the matter, still has not commented on the Armitage matter. But this was a serious matter.  It has to be reckoned with.

09/01 09:30 AMShare