WaPo’s Bob Woodward — he of the recently-partially-revealed memories on the Plame leak mess — has a very important data point quoted in today’s paper. Woodward said:

“Remember the investigation and the allegations that people have printed about this story is that there’s some vast conspiracy to slime Joe Wilson and his wife, really attack him in an ugly way that is outside the boundaries of hardball. The evidence I had, firsthand, a small piece of the puzzle I acknowledge, is that was not the case.” (emphasis added).

There are several things we should gather from this. (1) The mainstream media hype over Wilson and Plame is simply that. They are creatures who wouldn’t exist were the cameras not pointed at them or the editorial pages crying out in their name; (2) that the supposedly Machiavellian Bush White House was not trying to protect itself from fatal damage by destroying Joe Wilson and avenging itself on his wife; and (3) that someone outside the White House inner circle — Richard Armitage? some high-ranker at CIA? — was the source for Woodward and probably Novak as well as part of the CIA and State Department political campaign in opposition to the Iraq war.

Patrick Fitzgerald seems to have settled in for a long Washington stay. Some other body needs to investigate the CIA and the State Department connection here. The Senate Intelligence Committee is the best body to investigate this.