Armitage admits it

Finally.

"I did what I did," Armitage said. "I embarrassed my president, my secretary, my department, my family and I embarrassed the Wilsons. And for that I'm very sorry."

But the AP still can't quite bring itself to note that the bipartison Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Wilson lied about the results of his report on Niger.  He lied to the press, and he lied in his famous op-ed piece in the NY Times. 

That what we lawyers call "opening the door".  As the Washington Post editorial concluded,

it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

So in one very important respect I disagree with Armitage's apology:  The Wilsons deserved it.

BONUS:  In case you were on another planet and missed this yesterday, David Broder took out a nice piece of hickory wood and applied it to the media's hide, particularly that of one Sid "Vicious" Blumenthal:

The only time I commented on the case was to caution reporters who offered bold First Amendment defenses for keeping their sources' names secret that they had better examine the motivations of the people leaking the information to be sure they deserve protection.

But caution has been notably lacking in some of the press treatment of this subject -- especially when it comes to Karl Rove. And it behooves us in the media to examine that behavior, not just sweep it under the rug.

Read the rest.

Comments

[Jonathan]

It's good that he admits it but the damage is done.