I discussed Catherine Martin's testimony on the first day of the Scooter Libby trial in this post the other day. Now, Patterico has more on her testimony from the L.A. Times story that is trying very hard to make people believe it was Vice President Dick Cheney who leaked Plame's name to the press.
For the record, it was Richard Armitage who leaked Plame's name. But that doesn't stop the L.A. Times from doing everything in its power to give the impression it was Cheney and his staff who did the leaking.
First there is the headline: Cheney's Key Role in Leak Case Detailed. Then there are sentences like these:
Cheney dictated detailed “talking points” for his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and others on how they could impugn the critic’s credibility, said Catherine J. Martin, who was the vice president’s top press aide at the time.
Libby is on trial on charges of obstructing an investigation into how the name of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, became public. The government says her identity emerged in conversations Libby had with several reporters. It is illegal to knowingly divulge the name of a CIA employee.
As Patterico points out, it is only illegal to knowingly divulge the name of a covert CIA employee. Which Valerie Plame was not.
As I pointed out the other day, it is nothing new for an entity (be it corporate or governmental) to try to "spin" news in a way that is favorable to it. I would have been more surprised had there been no plan to attack lyin' Joe Wilson's lyin' account of his trip to Niger.
But the main point is that it wasn't Scooter Libby or Cathie Martin or Dick Cheney or anybody else in the V.P.'s office who leaked Plame's name. It was Richard Armitage.
Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to get this one right. They're too invested in smearing the vice president to bother with inconvenient truths.
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