Topic: NewsBusters
A July 12 NewsBusters post, Ken Shepherd asserted that the Associated Press, in an article mentioning the investigation of Scooter Libby and the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, "left COMPLETELY unmentioned" that "then-Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage, a critic of the Iraq war who reported directly to Colin Powell, NOT directly under Bush or Cheney in the White House, was the official who leaked Plame's CIA employment status. I mean, why let facts get in the way of a perfectly good managed storyline?"
That's a question we can put to Shepherd. Armitage was not "the leaker"; Libby did, in fact, leak Plame's CIA identity to at least two reporters. Shepherd, like fellow NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein, is making the absurd argument that because Armitage leaked Plame's name to Robert Novak, and Novak was the first to report it ahead of the reporters to whom Libby leaked, that Libby's leak somehow magically didn't happen.
