Isikoff: Armitage outed Plame
posted at 11:05 am on August 27, 2006 by Allahpundit
I’m hip-deep in Centannimania, but this just showed up in my RSS reader. Enjoy.
Indeed, Armitage was a member of the administration’s small moderate wing. Along with his boss and good friend, Powell, he had deep misgivings about President George W. Bush’s march to war. A barrel-chested Vietnam vet who had volunteered for combat, Armitage at times expressed disdain for Dick Cheney and other administration war hawks who had never served in the military. Armitage routinely returned from White House meetings shaking his head at the armchair warriors. “One day,” says Powell’s former chief of staff Larry Wilkerson, “we were walking into his office and Rich turned to me and said, ‘Larry, these guys never heard a bullet go by their ears in anger … None of them ever served. They’re a bunch of jerks’.”
Update: Captain Ed’s dead right:
The more I think about this, the angrier I get — and not just at Patrick Fitzgerald. Richard Armitage confessed to the DoJ in October 2003, and then sat on his ass for the next three years as the media and the Left play this into a paranoid fantasy of conspiracies and revenge. I know Armitage dislikes Rove, Libby, Cheney, and Bush, but what kind of man sits around while the world accuses people of a “crime” that he himself committed? Armitage did nothing while the nation spent years and millions of dollars chasing a series of red herrings, never speaking out to remove the mystery and end the witch hunt. Even three years later, Armitage hasn’t mustered the testicular fortitude to publicly admit that he leaked Plame’s identity and status; he has Isikoff and Corn do it for him.
Update: Maguire heads down into the labyrinth. I wish I cared enough about this story to know if he’s making sense or not. Sounds like a barnburner!
Novak was on Meet the Press this morning and Russert asked him about Isikoff’s article. Greg Tinti has video of his reaction.
Blowback
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I question the timing. And I see the hand of Rove in this.
Wonder what the Val and Joe show will have to say on this, which throws another monkey wrench into their already redonkulous lawsuit.
Pablo on August 27, 2006 at 11:17 AM
I question the timing. And I see the hand of Rove in this.
I don’t want to draw rolley eyes … but think about it.
I see several different large tsunami sized waves about to hit the left. Anyone wanna share a bag of popcorn? It’s amazingly entertaining how hard they beat themselves around.
Campaign season can’t get here fast enough.
One Angry Christian on August 27, 2006 at 11:30 AM
This is unreal… its seems that the DOJ, and administration, as well as DEMOCRATS knew about this all along, but it wasn’t in their ‘interests’ to tell the truth…
A Plaugue on both their houses…
Romeo13 on August 27, 2006 at 11:58 AM
Wow, another double super secret identity revealed by Michael Isikoff, the MSM black hole for all government leaks. Sorry no credibility here. Wasn’t this the liberal Newsweek columnist whose journalistic undercover work discovered we were flushing Korans down the toilet at Guitmo? That was some solid research there Mike. Nice job criticizing our troops and emboldening our enemies with a fake story.
It should be interesting to watch this story unravel, since Isikoff is pointing the finger of blame at another Bushie hater, albeit one within his own administration.
fogw on August 27, 2006 at 11:58 AM
I give this about 3 minutes until Kos, Hamsher, and whoever else either declare this story to be part of the cover up, or try to rewrite history so that Armitage is redefined as a “partisan gunslinger.” If past history is any guide, the nutroots will respond to this the same way they respond to any conflicting evidence, by cramming their heads even further in the sand.
Squid Vicious on August 27, 2006 at 12:10 PM
Old War Dog John Werntz, who watched D-Day unfold from the air over France, has posted an excellent disection of the Isikoff article at our place. FLASH: Isikoff Tells All…Aww shucks, it’s nothing.
bdfaith on August 27, 2006 at 12:14 PM
Here’s a question: what will this do to Wilson and Plame’s lawsuit? Anyone want to lay odds that it will deter the suit in any way?
Squid Vicious on August 27, 2006 at 12:23 PM
Sickening. Armitage cared more about his sorry behind than in publically clearing falsely accused persons whom he is not fit to be in the same room with. Early on, Fitzgerald determined that no crime had been committed in releasing Palme’s status with the CIA, but pursued the case to get perjury charges by entrapment where no crime had been originally committed. All of this was egged on by an MSM that cared not a whit about Plame’s “outing,” but saw a chance to distort information to slime an administration it hates much more than the Isamo-Nazi killers who would destroy us all.
ptolemy on August 27, 2006 at 12:41 PM
It’s a sinister Zionist/Rovian conspiracy to divert attention away from Bush’s farts.
speed647 on August 27, 2006 at 1:34 PM
Pablo and most Leftists give Rove credit as being the greatest political genius in all human history. Is there nothing they perceive as negative that Rove did not create and direct? Apparently not! It is also true that according to them, Rove has never done anything positive!
I get a little tired of these complaints about this “armchair warrior’ crap. What about Lincoln, when did he serve in the military and under fire? The fact is, many of those on the political side of any war have no service in the military and damn few in combat. I prefer a Commander-In-Chief” with military experience, which Bush had; but it is not an absolute necessity and history has indicated some of them become great military leaders during a time of war. I don’t even get upset about people without military experience being critical of any war; it only bothers me when they pretend to know all about war.
Armitage was and is a leftist, and he allowed many people to suffer through this Plame affair, when a man of true courage would have been a stand-up guy and accepted the blame. The fact is, his career and his financial interests were best served by allowing many others to pay for his errant behavior.
Umnumzana on August 27, 2006 at 1:51 PM
Umnumzana, let me introduce you to a little thing I like to call sarcasm.
Karl Rove is a personal hero of mine, right up there with Rumsfeld. Any questions?
Pablo on August 27, 2006 at 2:23 PM
Pablo, I condemn your sarcasm.
But your timing…eh.
;-)
MamaAJ on August 27, 2006 at 2:42 PM
Pablo, Umnumzana apparently can’t see the “sarcasm” tags embedded in your comments.
georgej on August 27, 2006 at 6:48 PM
I guess partisan liar and traitor Joe Wilson owes Karl Rove an apology. Think he’ll get one?
georgej on August 27, 2006 at 6:49 PM
“Isikoff: Armitage outed Plame”
Who really gives a rip?
byteshredder on August 27, 2006 at 7:13 PM
georgej and Pablo: You leftists can attack me all you want, I read nothing in that post to indicate sarcasm and I replied to the written word. If Pablo meant something else then he was incapable on conveying his message in an intelligent manner.
If either of you Leftists don’t like it, don’t reply to my posts! I will reply to your idiotic posts any damn time I want!
Umnumzana on August 27, 2006 at 9:24 PM
Umnumzana, you’re just ever so special. But I get your drift. I’m a leftist, and you’re sane person.
You’ve been looking at the Doublemint twins again, haven’t you dirty boy? You know where that leads, don’t you?
Pablo on August 28, 2006 at 12:05 AM
De rien! It’s really nothing!
P.S. However, Mr. (Princess) Wilson is still crying. He’ll have to find a new purpose in life now and can’t quite buy that new Jaguar V12 yet…
Umnumzana, from all the posts there is little indication that Pablo and georgej are leftists. Sometimes they’re sarcastic, like I am often. We just need to be careful to turn those buttons off, especially when we address other commenters. In the most sincere way, I agree with Pablo that you’re ever so special. Respectfully,
Entelechy on August 28, 2006 at 2:27 AM
Hello Umnumzana; “questioning the timing” and “seeing the hand of Rove” are hand-in hand, running jokes on this blog. Understandable that you would be alarmed (to say the least) if those had been meant seriously.
RD on August 28, 2006 at 5:44 AM
Admit it Pablo, you are really a spy for Sadly,No! aren’t you?
B Moe on August 28, 2006 at 6:54 AM
Umnumzana wrote:
I’m
georgej on August 28, 2006 at 8:04 AM
B Moe,
You of all people ought to know. Last I heard, I was you! ;-)
That was a SN! goon, wasn’t it?
Pablo on August 28, 2006 at 8:30 AM
Finger check. Try again…
Umnumzana wrote:
I’m a LEFTIST? HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!
Oh, man, I’m laughing so hard, I need seat belts to prevent my falling to the floor.
You clearly haven’t read many of my posts, have you? Or if you have, you haven’t read them for comprehension.
Neither have you read much of Pablo’s either.
Maybe you ought to visit the vault and read some before you embarrass yourself again.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject, there is a bit of unfinished business I have with you from some previous posts dealing with FDR.
You advanced the opinion that FDR was truthful when he said he didn’t want America to enter WWII. When I agreed with honora’s point that FDR clearly did intend to enter the war against Germany as well as enter a war with Japan, you made this gratuitious flame about me to honora:
Specifically:
Frankly, I think you need to read more about the origins of WWII, because you clearly have not mastered the material. So here’s a partial reading list for you:
Read: The New Dealers’ War: FDR and the War Within World War II by Thomas J. Fleming.
Or try Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert Stinnett.
Both books expose FDR’s behind the scenes manipulations to posture America to enter WWII, even though he was mouthing all the proper isolationist phrases.
Oh. One more thing about FDR and his secret plan to go to war. It is a FACT that on December 4, 1941 (3 whole days before Pearl Harbor), the openly FDR-hating Chicago Tribune revealed FDR’s secret war plans to invade German occupied Europe with 5 million men in 1943 by running a front page story, complete with a reproduction of the cover page signed by Roosevelt.
Don’t take my word for it…google the date and FDR and “war plans” and see what you get.
The fact is, the Tribune’s report was a leaked document from someone in the War Department. It is prima fascia evidence that FDR lied when he said he wasn’t planning for war with Germany. He most certainly was. Just as he was planning for war with Japan.
And in this humble citizen’s opinion, it was a GOOD THING for America that FDR saw enough of the future, early enough in time, to get a jump on the actual hostilities, too.
I’ll give you one more free clue: Look up the date of the keel laying of the USS IOWA — the first of the Iowa class battleships. Then you can wonder whatever happened to the Treaty of Washington of 1922, and why.
georgej on August 28, 2006 at 8:34 AM
S,N! exposed us both as Goldstein sock-puppets, but I am starting to doubt that you are on the right foot.
I also must condemn myself for that pun.
B Moe on August 28, 2006 at 9:23 AM
I’m still chewing on this one:
It’s in quotes attributed to ‘Rich’ but is it a direct quote, or an isikoffian paraphrase?
I have only been shot at once, in crime, not war, and that bullet missed my head by an inch. I have been to the gun range and I don’t remember ever hearing a bullet go by.
Maybe I’m old, maybe I’m slow, but the crack of a gun firing is just hitting my ears after the bullet is long past and my reflexes to the crack of firing are just getting started. The time frame between firing, and hitting target is so tiny I can’t see how there is time to identify a whistle in passing.
I concede they duck bullets in the movies.
where is war_dawg? Do you remember hearing bullets go by?
Angry bullets?
entagor on August 28, 2006 at 9:55 AM
If anyone’s interested, apparently the new meme circulating among the nutroots goes something like this: Armitage was a well-known gossip and chatterbox, so Rove told him Plame’s identity, knowing that he would run out and tell the press. I’m sure the nutroots will be able to sleep easy again, now they’ve resolved that Rove is still the source of all evil in the world.
Squid Vicious on August 28, 2006 at 11:20 AM
Wow, another double super secret identity revealed by Michael Isikoff, the MSM black hole for all government leaks. Sorry no credibility here. Wasn’t this the liberal Newsweek columnist whose journalistic undercover work discovered we were flushing Korans down the toilet at Guitmo? That was some solid research there Mike. Nice job criticizing our troops and emboldening our enemies with a fake story.
It should be interesting to watch this story unravel, since Isikoff is pointing the finger of blame at another Bushie hater, albeit one within his own administration.
fogw on August 27, 2006 at 11:58 AM
honora on August 28, 2006 at 1:37 PM
fogw: sorry, again undone by this Chinese puzzle (Confederacy of Dunces fans will get that one). Isikoff is also the reporter who quit the Washington Post because they wouldn’t run with the Paula Jones story and who broke the Monica Lewinsky story in the press.
Great reporter IMO.
honora on August 28, 2006 at 1:39 PM
You need not delve into the details of this one, all you need to know is this: it (the whole “Bush outed a double super secret agent to retaliate against said Jane Bond’s wife) was BS from the beginning and remains BS.
You also need to know that the MSM will never, ever admit that in any sort of direct way. Ever.
thirteen28 on August 28, 2006 at 2:08 PM
A secret can only be divulged or ‘outed’ when it’s still a secret. Antonyms to ‘secret’: open, manifest. Yep, VP and JW…
It’s really all about nothing. And always was. The violin is playing, and playing, and playing. To mind come the “will you fire K. Rove?” shouts at news-conferences and other gatherings…”even if he’s not guilty, but in the spirit of lacrima cristi…”
Also, Armitage possesses lesser of an intellect than the halo which surrounded him over the years would suggest.
Entelechy on August 28, 2006 at 4:50 PM
I’d like to know when the left is going to start shouting for Armitage’s indictment.
:::crickets:::
Pablo on August 28, 2006 at 5:26 PM
“Eternal Plame“
Entelechy on August 28, 2006 at 5:32 PM
Don’t you mean canonization?
entagor on August 28, 2006 at 7:33 PM
georgej: I don’t need lectures from a low grade moron like you or your girlfriend Pablo! I prefer to keep things civil and decent, based on rational thought and considerate debate; but if you two turds want a fight, I am willing, ready and able.
I read Comrade Pablo’s remarks, and not knowing him, I took his comments literally and responded to his unreasoning, fanatical attacks against Rove. I trust and respect Entelechy, he is a fine gentleman and a decent man, so if he tells me your intimate friend is not a liberal, I will accept his word. That notwithstanding, neither Pablo nor you deserve any apology from me nor any defense of my comments, if you don’t like what I said – tough shit!
I also don’t need history books by liberal historians, these so-called historians are biased and totally unreliable! Apparently you are unaware that there were two theaters of war during WW-II, Japan and Europe. You defend FDR’s plans for Japan, which I do not contest, he was proactive and aggressive on that front. However, it is an absolutely undeniable fact; and to the great cost of perhaps millions of Jews that he was tardy and quite reluctant to engage in the war in Europe. I don’t need your liberal historians to educate me, I can look at the death camps and the millions of dead there and elsewhere in Europe; and I can rationally, truthfully conclude that FDR was very tardy and quite reluctant in the European theater of operations. FDR also refused for a long time to allow any European Jews to seek sanctuary in the United States. Maybe, you should go back to school and read about the European part of WW-II and FDR’s policies regarding that theater of war before you get on your moral high horse.
My father served during WW-II as Captain of a United States Navy ship in the Pacific (sunk by the Japanese), while my eldest, late brother-in-law and my father-in-law (A man who received a battlefield commission for his heroism, serving with Patton, and he was the first American soldier into one of the death camps) fought in Europe; and I have their direct testimony. I can also look to my relatives in Europe, but I cannot talk to most of them because they are dead thanks to FDR.
So, let the war begin comrade and you and your girlfriend Pablo better be ready for all out toe-to-toe combat.
I don’t like the language I just used above or engage in uncivil discourse; but I will not be attacked and be passive, all for the horrible offense of reacting to the words clearly contained in Comrade Pablo’s post.
Umnumzana on August 28, 2006 at 8:07 PM
Umnumzana, georgej and Pablo,
I believe that great mistunderstandings have occurred, for whatever litte/larger reasons. Such is often the case in life, and also in the cyber-world.
I have learned from and enjoyed the posts of all three of you and believe that this could develop into an internecine ‘fight’, in other words among relatively alike thinkers.
If apologies for all misunderstandings are hard for any of you, perhaps, just suggesting, it would be nice to just leave it at this.
We have bigger, much bigger fish to fry with our world events of today, and could use all of your energies and resources for better and more important fights. And some fun now and then too, including sarcasm.
Hoping that reasoning and not testasterone prevails…sincerely and meaning well.
Umnumzana, I hope you will not be disappointed but I am a lady :) This I know for sure!
Entelechy on August 29, 2006 at 1:52 AM
Entelechy: Then you are a gracious, intelligent woman with and I appreciate your many posts!
Umnumzana on August 29, 2006 at 10:03 PM
Don’t feel too bad Pablo. Umnumzana’s typical response to anyone who disagrees with him on a single issue is to call them a leftist, regardless of any other comments that person might have made… and regardless of whether or not they were only made in jest, apparently.
I’m still waiting for Umnumzana to explain to me how my taking exception to his own Statist impulses somehow magically transformed me into a leftist.
Watcher on August 30, 2006 at 11:37 AM