1 Boring Old Man

DAVID SHUSTER: While the trial against Scooter Libby has revealed that Vice President Cheney directed efforts to smear a high profile administration critic… The evidence from both sides shows President Bush took an interest in Joe Wilson as well and eventually played a role in trying to undermine him.

In May of 2003, before Wilson went public, this article by Nicholas Kristof referred to an ambassador’s findings in Niger. At the grand jury, Libby was asked about one of his notes:

Fitzgerald: Does that indicate the President was interested in the State of the Union and the Kristof article?
Libby: Yes.
Fitzgerald:. And do you recall what the occasion was that, that you came to learn that the President was interested in the Kristof article?
Libby: I, I don’t. It could be something that somebody said to me that I –it doesn’t mean that I observed it. It may be something someone said to me and I wrote it down.
Fitzgerald: Any recollection of discussing with the Vice President the interest of the President in the Kristof article?
Libby: I don’t, I don’t have a recollection of it.

In an audio recording played in court, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, during an interview with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, says CIA director George Tenet personally told the White House the claim was wrong and got it removed from another Bush speech before the State of the Union.

Woodward: Oh really? It was taken out?
Armitage: "Taken out. George said, you can’t do this."
Woodward: How come it wasn’t out of the State of the Union then?" Armitage: Because I think it was overruled by the types down at the white house. Condi doesn’t like being in the hot spot."