Freedom Line Blog

As she has done several times in the past, Jennifer Rubin got to a story before me, to say exactly what I wanted to say, with meticulously documented and explained research backing up her conclusions. In this case, she eviscerates Colin Powell for continuing his cowardly, pass-the-buck, point-the-fingers-elsewhere behavior with regard to the infamous “leak” of the CIA status of Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador and loudmouth Joe Wilson. The upshot of his cowardice, and that of his top aide Richard Armitage, was a years-long investigation that wrongly ensnared the honest and loyal Scooter Libby for perjury he did not even commit, along with a deeply dishonest movie that further besmirched Libby’s name.  It also wrongly blamed our entry into the Gulf War on supposed reliance on bad intelligence — intelligence that wasn’t bad and that wasn’t actually the basis of our entry into the war. The truth is that Libby should have been pardoned.

Anyway, Rubin explains:

Recall how all of this played out. Armitage and Powell allowed the entire country and troops in the field to believe a lie, namely that the White House had “outed” Plame. This, aside from the galling display of moral cowardice, also put the president’s reelection in jeopardy since Democrats were all too intent on making this into a huge scandal.

The extent of the dishonesty is quite stunning. In a Cabinet meeting on October 7, 2003, the White House press corps bombarded President George W. Bush with questions about who the leaker was. Bush said he didn’t know, but there would be an investigation to get to the bottom of it. Powell, who had been told by Armitage just days earlier that Armitage was the leaker, sat there next to the president, stone silent. Not very loyal or honest, was it?

Finally, it is worth noting that Libby voluntarily testified and cooperated in every way, sometimes without an attorney even parsing his words. Libby never once acted like a man with anything to hide. Powell and Armitage, however, hid what they knew, and what Armitage did, for two years. Now THAT’s shameful.