« Hide and Seek | Main | Marshall on Novak and his sources / Drum on why Republicans are scary »
October 09, 2003
Probably crime, not blunder
Yesterday, I'd posted this based on a Michael Isikoff article in Newsweek. Today, Atrios reminds us of this quote from the Washington Post's 9/29 issue:
Another journalist yesterday confirmed receiving a call from an administration official providing the same information about Wilson's wife before the Novak column appeared on July 14 in The Post and other newspapers.So, even if Isikoff is right in his speculation that the senior administration official was confused about whether the "WaPo 6" were all called before or after Novak's July 14th column, there's separate evidence confirming that at least one other journalist did get a call before July 14th - which shows that there were other attempts to get the information put out there before Novak ran with it.
The journalist, who asked not to be identified because of possible legal ramifications, said that the information was provided as part of an effort to discredit Wilson, but that the CIA information was not treated as especially sensitive. "The official I spoke with thought this was a part of Wilson's story that wasn't known and cast doubt on his whole mission," the person said, declining to identify the official he spoke with. "They thought Wilson was having a good ride and this was part of Wilson's story."
Unfortunately, I'd totally forgotten about this when I wrote the piece yesterday, and I am sorry for any confusion.
Posted by thorswitch at October 9, 2003 10:38 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.differentstrings.info/mt/mt-tb-ds.cgi/1260