The American Spectator

What they did enabled Fitzgerald to continue his pursuit of Rove and the rest of the White House without the restraint imposed by public knowledge of the single most important fact. There was no White House conspiracy to “out” Paper Pusher Plame to punish Ol’ Joe. The non-leak came from Armitage, not the White House.

Thanks to Armitage, Scooter Libby has lost his job and is now immersed in a criminal case that must have already cost him millions in legal fees and will certainly cost him millions more. Fitzgerald is waiting until 2007 to try Libby.

Thanks to Armitage, the White House has been hobbled by this phony scandal for three years. Its credibility — in Congress and in relations with other governments — was damaged significantly by the charge of lawbreaking. The Democrats have linked the phony Plame scandal to every other allegation of abuse of intelligence they make to discredit the handling of the war. How many times have we heard Schumer, Rockefeller, Durbin and the rest say we can’t trust this administration, using Wilson-Plame as proof? The revelation of Armitage’s responsibility creates another situation like Reagan’s Labor Secretary, Ray Donovan, faced when exonerated of corruption charges. Where does the Bush administration go to get its reputation back?

Armitage’s leak was not innocent, idle chatter. And worse, much worse, was his cravenness in not telling the truth to the president he supposedly served. Armitage told Powell on October 1, 2003. If he felt his loyalty to Powell required him to call his boss on that date, he had a greater loyalty to tell the president before the sun set that day. The facts that neither he nor Powell told the president, that both allowed the Democrats and the media to damage the Bush administration for almost three years afterward and let Scooter Libby’s life to be ruined, disqualifies both Armitage and Powell from ever holding public office again. Let them retire in the ignominy they deserve.

What medal shall we give the man who leaked and remained silent? Hester Prynne wore the scarlet letter. For the leaker who hid while the political lynch mob hoisted his president and Scooter Libby, there has to be a special reward. There’s only one name for it: the Armitage Award.

TAS contributing editor Jed Babbin is the author of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think (Regnery, 2004) and, with Edward Timperlake, Showdown: Why China Wants War With the United States (Regnery, May 2006 — click here).