The authors of The New York Times article on Joe Wilson’s new book note that he points a finger of blame at I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the Vice President’s Chief of Staff.
The article then says: “But Mr. Wilson offers no firm evidence to support his assertion, and the White House has denied it.” And then later: “The White House has denied that Mr. Libby, Mr. Abrams or Mr. Rove were involved in the disclosure.”
With respect, that’s not true.
It may seem that I’m being hyper-specific. But the White House has gone to great lengths not to deny that these men were involved in disclosing Plame’s identity. In fact, they’ve refused to do so. Rather, they’ve clung to hyper-technical claims that none of the three were involved in the “leaking of classified information” in the hope that journalists will read this as a blanket denial, which is it not.
The ‘classified information’ dodge allows them to avoid the actual question and hang their hat on technical interpretations about what was a leak and what was classified when.
Given how aggressively the press ‘parsed’ the former administration’s word, this is quite sloppy.
