1 Boring Old Man

Back in December, I posted the pictures of the principles in the Plame Game:

It looks like I we missed a the major player, Richard Armitage.[1][2] Richard Armitage is being identified as the original source for Robert Novak, and before that, Bob Woodward. Who is he? What’s the story? Is it finally all out in the open?

A new book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," by Michael Isakoff [Newsweek] and David Corn [The Nation], apparently tells this story:

In the early morning of Oct. 1, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell received an urgent phone call from his No. 2 at the State Department. Richard Armitage was clearly agitated. As recounted in a new book, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War,"  Armitage had been at home reading the newspaper and had come across a column by journalist Robert Novak. Months earlier, Novak had caused a huge stir when he revealed that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson, was a CIA officer. Ever since, Washington had been trying to find out who leaked the information to Novak. The columnist himself had kept quiet. But now, in a second column, Novak provided a tantalizing clue: his primary source, he wrote, was a "senior administration official" who was "not a partisan gunslinger." Armitage was shaken. After reading the column, he knew immediately who the leaker was. On the phone with Powell that morning, Armitage was "in deep distress," says a source directly familiar with the conversation who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. "I’m sure he’s talking about me."

…

As it turned out, Novak wasn’t the only person Armitage talked to about Plame. Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has also said he was told of Plame’s identity in June 2003. Woodward did not respond to requests for comment for this article, but, as late as last week, he referred reporters to his comments in November 2005 that he learned of her identity in a "casual and offhand" conversation with an administration official he declined to identify. According to three government officials, a lawyer familiar with the case and an Armitage confidant, all of whom would not be named discussing these details, Armitage told Woodward about Plame three weeks before talking to Novak.

Armitage was second in command to Colin Powell at the State Department. On the one hand, he was one of the signers of the P.N.A.C. 1998 letter to Clinton advocating "regime change" in Iraq. On the other hand, he was Colin Powell’s ally and friend – the moderate voice in government. At the time of the leak, the State Department and the C.I.A. were in the "out group" with the Bush  Administration. The book, as described by its authors, will say that it was an "innocent" leak, not part of some plan that started the whole thing, though Libby et. al. were perhaps setting up a more malicious leak of their own [?]. Instead, they became [more than willing?] confirmation sources of this other leak. And, as emptywheel points out, this doesn’t explain how Novak came to know Plame was "an operative." Armitage didn’t know that she was, so he couldn’t have leaked that part of the story.