First of all, I find it absurd to claim that Wilson was "asking for it" in terms of revealing his wife's identity. Sending an experienced diplomat with much area expertise on such a mission is not at all unusal. It has happened many times, without some sort of a justification built in, that the media and the administration is thereby free to burrow into the CIA and publicly expose those who were involved in sending the diplomat.

And of course, there is the obvious question of how it is that Armitage came to know about Plame's role and her identity. He passed it along as gossip - well, he must have recieved it as gossip from the WH. And that, of course, gets to the original charge. That the WH was orchestrating a campaign to spread the word about Plame. Armitage may have been the first whose words found their way into the press, but he was not the only one. We know that Rove and Libby were doing the same.

And that Libby perjured himeself when testifying about his role.

There was no Fitzmas. There will be no Fitzmas. There's no chance that there will be a Fitzmas. If that means I'm the Grinch, so be it....

It's been a tough day for the Fitzmas crowd. WaPo called it for the other side. And even though some are still desperately holding on, it's over. But since I'm such a bleeding heart, here's a little ditty that'll hopefully......

Let's hear it NOW

APOLOGIZE

Fred Haitt has been strongly pro-war and pro-Bush and consistently wrong for years in that so-called-liberal bastion.

It's funny, all the stories that the media seems to exaggerate, especially when it comes to either A) Race or B) President Bush.

But when it finally comes down to getting to the truth of the matter, you normally find things are rarely what the med....

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

Wait, is the Post suggesting that Iraq really was trying to purchase uranium from Niger? So far all I have heard was that it was definitely debunked, has this information changed?

Any serious review of the facts would see that treating the press as an adjunct to the opposition party is just rational behavior. Or perhaps you are still waiting for Rather to break the CBS story that the TANG memos were faked.

Can you run it by me again on how Cheney, Rove, Libby and company could have ended the mess sooner? It was the fourth horse man of the GOP apocalypse that was the original source, not any of those you list. It was Powell who was told shortly after the Novak article but didn't tell those listed as a tactic in bureaucratic fighting. It was Fitzgerald who knew this in the first week of investigation and didn't wrap up the investigation "mess much sooner".

And don't forget that Libby would be saving himself a lot of time and trouble if he had just pleaded the fifth on every question asked. Instead he tried to cooperate with the investigation the Fitzgerald continued and is now on trial for a faulty memory (or at least that is his defense).

Colin Powell told him to be quiet.

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told columnist Robert Novak the identity of underc...