Saturday, September 02, 2006
Armitage did not resign because... huh?
The New York Times comes through this morning with "New Questions About Inquiry In CIA Leak." While we all wait for the "full Maguire," I'll fill the silence with a question: Why did Richard Armitage postpone his resignation from the State Department? The Times' answer is wispy-thin:
On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Armitage was up at 4 a.m. for a predawn workout when he read a second article by Mr. Novak in which he described his primary source for his earlier column about Ms. Wilson as “no partisan gunslinger.” Mr. Armitage realized with alarm that that could only be a reference to him, according to people familiar with his role. He waited until Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, an old friend, was awake, then telephoned him. They discussed the matter with the top State Department lawyer, William H. Taft IV.
Mr. Armitage had prepared a resignation letter, his associates said. But he stayed on the job because State Department officials advised that his sudden departure could lead to the disclosure of his role in the leak, the people aware of his actions said.
I'll climb out on a limb and declare that the bolded paragraph is an example of major media at its very worst. Reporter David Johnston has raised a huge pile of stunningly obvious questions, and does not even have the good graces to tell us whether he can't or won't answer them. At whose behest did Armitage prepare that undelivered resignation letter? Did he do it on his own because he's a stand-up guy, did Powell suggest it, or State Department lawyers? Which State Department "officials" advised that a sudden departure could lead to the disclosure of his role in the leak? Was it Powell, top lawyer Taft, or Armitage's weight-lifting buddies? Were they giving this advice in Armitage's interest -- "you don't want to hurt your reputation" -- or were they making a threat -- "it would be so unfortunate if word got around that you were the criminal"? Given that Armitage went to the "authorities" (Johnston's word) immediately and without benefit of legal advice, why did the State Department care that Armitage's role in the leak might be disclosed? Armitage's leak was obviously non-criminal, and it wasn't as though senior State Department officials were worried that word would get out that they were talking to Bob Woodward. Colin Powell seems hardly to make a move in public life without Bob Woodward there to record his side of the story.
My own speculation is that Armitage prepared a letter of resignation on his own initiative, knowing that he served at the pleasure of the same President who was famously hot under the collar about leakers. I further speculate that it had to have been Colin Powell who talked Armitage out of resigning. Who else would have had the juice to persuade Armitage to stay in a job he was prepared to quit? At the barest minimum, Powell had to of known of the advice to Armitage not to resign, and must have agreed with it.
Why didn't Powell want Armitage to resign? There are three obvious possible reasons, and probably more that are not obvious. First, Powell was Armitage's good friend and ally, and wanted him to stick around as long as Powell was in the job. Fine. Second, Powell had to have been worried that the glare of publicity and the partisan rage of the Democrats would then turn on Colin Powell. Colin Powell didn't get to be Colin Powell without careful stewardship of his own press coverage, but he would not have been able to contain the blowback from the media and the left if he stood in the way of the prosecution of Karl Rove. Third, by October Powell had to have known that people in the White House had also been talking about Plame, and he did not want to derail that investigation. His motives in that might have been a genuine dedication to transparent government, or bare-knuckle bureaucratic politics.
Either way, if we accept the hypothesis that Armitage's resignation would have had the effect of stopping the investigation in its tracks, or at least derailing the appointment of a special prosecutor, the press should be a lot more interested in who advised Armitage not to resign, and why. David Johnston should have admitted that he did not know the answers to these questions, or told us that he does know but is not permitted to report it. Anything less is not news, it is obfuscation.
2 Comments:
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Sat Sep 02, 10:19:00 PM:
I suspect that the answer is much simpler; Mr. Powell isn't that politically astute. The office politics and ass-kissing one encounters among military officers is a different animal from the national-level intrigue of our republic.
But that's just my opinion.
By Teflon, at
Sun Sep 03, 01:48:00 PM:
I think you're too kind to Powell, who has been a backstabbing, political SOB since he came to Washington, if not before.
Try this on for size:
Powell knew the press would protect Armitage (and by extension, himself) so long as the knowledge that the leak came from their camp wasn't public.
That then would allow them to continue to feed embarassing leaks to the media, who would continue to use them to bash Armitage and Powell's political enemies within the Bush Administration.
Keep in mind that Powell spent his tenure shivving GOP pols in Washington, not hopping on planes to do his job as SecState---he is widely considered to have been the least-travelled Secretary of State in modern memory, remarkable given the amount of diplomacy required post 9/11.
Or do you believe that he and Armitage joined Bush-hater John McCain's uncampaign because Powell finds former Navy fighter pilots so much more pleasant to be around than ex-ANG fighter pilots?
