Reuters: Plamegate, featuring the fruitless investigation by Fitzgerald "one of the biggest scandals" of the Bush administration (Updated/modified)

One for the editorial-masquerading-as-news department.

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush did not know about a White House effort to leak the identity of a CIA agent but tried to protect staffers who were involved in one of the biggest scandals of his administration, former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told Congress on Friday.

McClellan said he did not think Bush was involved in a 2003 effort to blow the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose husband had accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

So. Even though no crime was discovered, there was a scandal. And not just a scandal. A big scandal. And not just a big scandal. Among the other (supposed) big scandals from the Bush administration, this was "one of the biggest."

Uh--what was the supposed scandal, Andy Sullivan?

But Bush, through his chief of staff, ordered McClellan to tell reporters that White House staffers Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby were not behind the leak, even though they both turned out to be involved, McClellan told the House Judiciary Committee.

This is not reporting. It is "reporting" editorial opinion as fact. This type of so-called reporting is an epidemic sickness in the mainstream press.

McClellan:

I do not know whether a crime was committed by any of the administration officials who revealed Valerie Plame's identity to reporters, nor do I know if there was an attempt by any person or persons to engage in a cover up during the investigation. I do know that it was wrong to reveal her identity, because it compromised the effectiveness of a covert official for political reasons. I regret that I played a role, however unintentionally, in relaying false information to the public about it.

Nice work, Scott. You're contradicting yourself.
So McClellan doesn't know if a crime was committed/it's wrong to reveal a covert identity for political reasons If that's not a crime then McClellan is using some careless language considering he's reading from a prepared statement.


This is the true beauty of Scott McClellan's book. It provides Democrats and their proxies in the mainstream press an excuse to continue spinning the facts surrounding the Valerie Plame saga.

What is McClellan saying? (Updated)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former White Press Secretary Scott McClellan says in an upcoming book that he was misled by President George W. Bush and other high officials into misinforming the press about a CIA leak case that fueled debate about the Iraq war.

McClellan says he publicly exonerated former top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby because Bush had called on him to help restore his credibility after the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"There was one problem. It was not true. I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff, and the president himself," McClellan said in an excerpt released on Tuesday.

(Reuters)

I look forward to seeing additional context around Scott McClellan's statements so that I can see if McClellan is saying the same thing the story seems to have him saying.

Update:

Editor & Publisher claims that they were first to publish the excerpt from McClellan's book. As publishers, I might expect greater care with the punctuation (what's that quotation mark doing in the the middle of the third graph?).

E&P was first mainstream news outlet to report on Monday night that the McClellan excerpt reads: "The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration "were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."
(Editor & Publisher)

So it's unlikely that there is any context other than this until the book is published or McClellan chooses to explain himself.

I'll wait.

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