Plame-Gate Bombs Out, But Once-excited NYT Hardly Notices

It really wasn't so long ago that the Times found it a question of vital importance exactly who told columnist Robert Novak that anti-war ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.

Now we know, thanks to "Hubris," a new book by Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff and left-wing writer David Corn of The Nation -- someone who bears much responsibility for puffing up the Plame non-story in the first place.

Times legal reporter Neil Lewis reports what everyone who has Internet access already knows -- that Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state under Colin Powell, was columnist Robert Novak's source for the information that Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson/Plame, worked for the CIA.

Having lost the partisan angle of a vengeful White House out to sabotage the now-discredited Wilson for suggesting the Iraq War was based on false pretenses (the moderate Armitage was no fan of the war), the Times shrugs the story off onto page A12: "First Source of C.I.A. Leak Admits Role, Lawyers Says."

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