Armitage, Plame Leaker?

This is weird. A Vanity Fair article is claiming that Ben Bradlee told them that it's a "fair assumption" to consider former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage the "likely source" who told Bob Woodward of Valerie Plame's identity. Bradlee is denying that he ever said that, however, saying that he knows who the source is and would never reveal it.
There's one thing that this confirms: Ben Bradlee should be testifying before Patrick Fitzgerald's new grand jury. I don't care about source confidentiality; whoever leaked this along with Scooter Libby seriously damaged American covert counter-proliferation efforts, and deserves what's coming to them, no matter how we find what that is.
But what's more interesting is that Armitage is a possibility. Armitage isn't a neoconservative; he's a realist, a intelligence community and military veteran who sided with Colin Powell the vast majority of time. He was skeptical about the war, as was Powell. Why would he, of all people, agree to do this?

Comments

[Brian Bodine]

Dear Minipundit,

The leaking of Valerie Plame's name did not "seriously damaged American covert counter-proliferation efforts".

Valerie Plame's activities in Africa were largely irrelevant to the overarching goals of the war on terrorism.

[Minipundit]

Dear Brian Bodine,

Yes, yes they did. Valerie Plame was working on stopping Iran's nuclear program at the time of her outing. Read the damn link in the post.