Actually one more section worth clipping here....

It was Corn in particular who asserted—in a July 16, 2003, blog post credited with starting the entire distraction—that: The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security. After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then.

Again, the sections above help to point out the hypocrisy of the left and their efforts to go after the Bush administration anyway they can. People like Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., Eleanor Clift, a bunch of Democrats throughout Washington and other parts of the country were out for blood from Rove, Cheney and the rest of the "thugs" in the Bush administration. Are they really ready to apologize now or is it all ok because "Bush lied", soldiers died, and we've had thousands of our troops killed in a war we shouldn't be fighting in to begin with?!

The funny/sad thing is that the left & the media continue to cling desperately to the "revenge/undermine" theory. Newsweek's language in their current-issue Armitage article presents the revenge argument flatly as accepted fact, while acknowledging that Armitage was the source of the leak, which was apparently unintential.

That absolutely no facts exist to support the revenge/undermine/"get even" theory troubles them not in the least. That motive was wholely invented by the press but has become a liberal article of faith - that's the story they're gonna go with, come hell or high water.

Just one of the many reasons I'm letting my Newsweek subscription expire this month after more than 30 years. I'm no longer willing to pay good money to read their biased BS.