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September 29, 2003
The Scandal That Wasn't
As I'm sure you've all heard by now, allegations have been flying since the weekend that certain unknown persons in the Bush administration "outed" the CIA operative wife of former Ambassador James C. Wilson. I haven't posted about it because a)I've been busy, and b) something about it just didn't smell right....a whole lot of smoke and mirrors, but very little substantive evidence for one. Two, I didn't see the motivation for anyone in the Bush administration besides petty vendictiveness....and that's more the Clintons' style. Bush's M.O. seems to me to be more give to someone enough rope to hang themselves with, then producing the evidence to do so.
This afternoon, Michele pointed to an quote by Novak, the news reporter that started this whole thing, on the Drudge Report that clears things up a bit.
'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives'...
And as Clifford D. May points out, it really wasn't much of a secret that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.
That wasn't news to me. I had been told that — but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.
He goes on to say he'd never reported it because he didn't think it was relevant to the credibility of Ambassador Wilson's claims.
So it appears at this point at least, no laws were violated and there's a whole lot more sizzle than steak in this "scandal".
Now let's see how long this denial takes to make into mainstream media.
UPDATE: John Hawkins has an excellent roundup of the whole mess.
Posted by Rita at September 29, 2003 05:42 PM