A teeny-tiny bit of the Wilson / Plame / Armitage / Fitzgerald chronology
We don’t want to try to cover the matters so admirably discussed by Tom McGuire, Clarice Feldman and AJ Strata, among many others. But we do want to note the thing that seems strangest of all to us in the matter of Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, and Patrick Fitzgerald.
Rovert Novak’s column that started the whole mess ran on July 14, 2003. Joe Wilson’s column had run more than a week before that, on July 6, 2003. By those dates, anyone who was anyone in Washington and New York elite media circles and who cared about this matter knew all about Wilson and Plame and the CIA.
One June 13, 2003, Richard Armitage told Bob Woodward about Plame. It is possible, as AJ Strata points out, that NY Timesman Nick Kristof knew all the details about Wilson and Plame by May 6, 2003. It appears quite likely that Andrea Mitchell knew all the details by July 8, 2003. And that self-described “terrible gossip” Richard Armitage had told Colin Powell and God knows how many others about Plame and Wilson and CIA at a minimum by October 1, 2003.
Here’s the part we don’t get. Everybody who cared about Wilson and Plame and was at a certain level in government or the MSM — and it appears to be quite a lot of people — knew all about the situation during the summer or early fall of 2003. That much is absolutely clear at this point. So why on earth was Patrick Fitzgerald appointed to do anything at all half a year later on December 30, 2003?
UPDATE
Tigerhawk and Andrew McCarthy have quite a lot to say on this matter of timing.
September 2nd, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Not only why was Fitzgerald appointed to do anything at all, but why, when Colin Powell knew on July 14th after Armitage calls him to tell Powell that Armitage thinks it is him that Novak is writing about , did he allow it to go on? Why did he refuse to accept Armitage’s resignation and why did both Armitage, and Powell, resign in November, 2004? Did the President know all the details by then and requested Powell’s resignation and did Powell remain silent and let all those he had worked with so closely be hung out to dry as retaliation?
Seems to me that both Fitzgerald and Powell have some ‘splaining to do.
September 3rd, 2006 at 10:00 am
“So why on earth was Patrick Fitzgerald appointed…”
The short answer is that a distracted and weak-kneed GWB approved the appointment because MSM hectored him into doing it. It was a stupid blunder which gave legitimacy to Wilson’s absurd fairy tale, and only served to give Bush Bashers and anti-Americans a bully platform for attacking him and undermining the War on Terror. It was a major mistake, perhaps “the” major mistake of GWB’s presidency.