News Breaking: Armitage's admission to outing Valerie Plame

[Imagevision]

Richard Armitage, a well-known gossip who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters, apparently hadn't thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame's identity.

"I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused this whole thing," he later told Carl Ford Jr., State's intelligence chief. Ford says Armitage admitted to him that he had "slipped up" and told Novak more than he should have.

"He was basically beside himself that he was the guy that f---ed up. My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat," Ford recalls in "Hubris," to be published next week by Crown and co-written by the author of this article and David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation magazine.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14533384/site/newsweek/

[HereSince1628]

1. I am reasonably sure I remember this was guessed months ago

Is this deja vu or am I having a senior moment?

[Parisle]

3. No,.... You Have It Right, Ok

-----Novak's "clues" were almost sufficient to reason it out. He said that one of his sources was in the State Dept. And leaking Plame's name is not something the administration would entrust to a non-PNAC'er. The only other PNAC member in the State Dept. besides Armitage was Paula Dobriansky. Flip a coin,... But yes, Armitage's name had come up prominently.

----- Now,.... will the timid democrats make a galvanizing point of the fact that the administration had known all of this the entire time,... even when going through the charade of the grand jury investifation, etc?

[shain from kane]

2. Oh, no. This will give scientology a bad name. n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. So Armitage is going to try to take the fall

Well, then why didn't he just come out 3 years ago and admit this and save everyone the time and expense of an investigation? Armitage may have been a part of this but he wasn't one of the main players despite is sudden desire to tell the 'truth'.

[Supersedeas]

16. so it seems

[itcfish]

17. Sounds Very Fishy

to me. Is this just in time for the November elections or what?

[msongs]

5. he does NOT say he did, he says he MIGHT have done it

not the same things.

Msongs
www.myspace.com/msongs

[sam sarrha]

10. so this way he can admit it and not go before the firing squad..??!!!!

[On the Road]

6. I Don't Know if Armitage is On the Level

If so, he should have come out with this immediately.

Now, whatever the truth, Bush and his whole inner circle have obviously stonewalled and lied to the public, not to mention the prosecutor.

[wtmusic]

8. If he isn't, he would have to be willing to do serious time

just to keep the GOP ship afloat. Doesn't add up.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Who was the idiot that kept this loser on the payroll?

He's either deviously pulling an Oliver North, or he's a total loser.

And since he signed the PNAC, I think it's the former.

[sam sarrha]

11. apparently they all losers on the payroll

[McCamy Taylor]

9. This is an attempt to smear COLIN POWELL !!! Do not be suckered.

Armitage has been cooperating with Fitz almost from day one. He has never been a target of the investigation. He is Colin POwell's right hand man. The WH's attempts to pin it on Armitage are thinnly veiled attempts to pin it on Colin Powell, who has been bad mouthing them about Iraq and about how they can not be trusted when it comes to making a case for war.

Armitage has done plenty of dirty things in the past, but he had no reason to help the administration with this stupid plot.

[OzarkDem]

14. Good point

Armitage has never been the target of the investigation, not even close. We can be fairly certain who the remaining suspects are, Armitage's "admission" doesn't change it.

[FrenchieCat]

12. Armitage is a PNAC Signer.......

He might be telling the truth or just taking the fall, but he must be doing what he feel is his "duty"!
Need I say more?

January 26, 1998

The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.
More of the letter here http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

Elliott Abrams Richard L. Armitage William J. Bennett

Jeffrey Bergner John Bolton Paula Dobriansky

Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad

William Kristol Richard Perle Peter W. Rodman

Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber

Paul Wolfowitz R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick

[OzarkDem]

13. How dumb does he think we are?

Chit - chat my azz.

[yellowcanine]

15. For some reason I am thinking of Rosemary Woods and 18 1/2 minute gaps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18_1/2_minute_gap

Now why would that be?


"I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused this whole thing," he later told Carl Ford Jr., State's intelligence chief. Ford says Armitage admitted to him that he had "slipped up" and told Novak more than he should have.

"Nixon's secretary. Woods later testified that she had made a 'terrible mistake', erasing the tape by accidentally pressing down the record pedal, whilst answering a phone call. The credibility of that claim was seriously undermined when she was asked to replicate the position she took to cause that accident. The result was Woods had to stretch out in her chair almost to an extreme length to reach both the record pedal and the telephone. Added to the fact that Woods would have had to hold that unnatural position for 18 1/2 minutes to erase the recording, her statements came out as an absurd lie."