PhotoDude.com

"...Meanwhile, right now, there are at least six reporters who know the identity of the leaker(s), and exactly what they said...." Yes, and while they can "shield" their sources, Joe Wilson is not a "journalist" and cannot shield their names! Joe Wilson needs to tell us the six names so we can test his claim that these reporters called him to tell him that his wife's name was being "shopped around" by the administration. If he can't name them then he is the liar. Why isn't the press calling for Joe Wilson to "Name names!"

I should probably assume that your comment is entirely sarcastic, especially on an entry entitled "Leaking Irony." I should probably assume that you are joking, and have followed this well enough to know that the White House leakers allegedly called six journalists, but did not then bother to call Joe Wilson and say, "hey, we just finsihed outing your wife, and here's the names of the six reporters we called." I should probably assume that you know that the numeric details of "six reporters" called by "two" people from the White House came from an "anonymous administration source" talking to the Washington Post .... not Joe Wilson. I should probably assume that you know that means either [1] two White House anaonymous sources were lying when they leaked about Wilson's wife, or [2] the anonymous adminstration source who leaked on the leakers is lying. Either way, someone in the Bush adminstration has been a bad little lying anonymous source. I should probably assume you already know these things. But somehow, I have my doubts. However, you are right in one way. There are a lot of people on both sides who know the truthful details of this story, yet no one is willing to share them with "We, The People." You might want to ponder that for a while. If this is all a lilly white nothingness, a mountain made out of an innocent molehill, why aren't the facts being quickly released to make that clear? Not just by Joe Wilson, but by the side that's being "slurred"? I know if I was being accused of underhanded ugliness of which I wasn't guilty, I'd be pushing for immediate transparency. I'd be defending myself angrily, with all the facts I could release. I imagine if someone went after my wife when they were aiming for me, I'd do the same thing; defend myself angrily, with all the facts I could. To hell with all this legal mumbo jumbo, parsing the letter of the law, and who should get a subpoena. I continue to wait for someone to come forward and defend the tactic of going after the family of those you deem your enemy. Even if it was legal. Apparently, Saddam lacks the Internet access to do so, or I'm sure he could make the case. Will someone stand in for him?

An anonymous source is poor thing to speculate on, but that's all we get. I just don't believe that six reporters were approached with the leak just to tarnish the image of some little chad in a sea of whoppers. I could be wrong of course, and it's only a little matter in PhotoDude's argument, but this one point seems the bizarre linchpin of the story. From Novak on the Oct. 1 he says "During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue." from his commentary and this makes the six journalist thing a puzzle indeed. Someone must have talked with Novak. It's not likely he would put his credibilty on the table over something like this. It seems possible, in this view, that the Bush team isn't sure who the bozo was who spoke with Novak. Again, in this view, it's possible the White House source who spoke to the Washington Post is the original bozo. This "leak" could be a bizarre and paranoid effort at covering his/her tracks to throw off suspicion from within the White House, hence the lie detectors. Surely I'm not the only one to have come to these conclusions. On the other hand maybe I'm reading something wrong.