Teamwork

A commenter at JustOneMinute succinctly sums up the Valerie Plame nonsense, which has now officially collapsed into the fetid, stinking heap it was since Day One.

"So the State Dept leaked the Plame info, then they hinted that the White House did it, then they kept quiet and let their friends in the press do the rest."

Precisely. The villains here are Plame's husband Joe "The Lying Ambassador" Wilson, Richard Armitage, Colin Powell, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, and the New York Times.

Another nice effort by all concerned. But one effect was that Karl Rove (the target) had to give up one of his White House jobs, and that frees him to concentrate fully on strategy for the upcoming elections. If he needed any extra motivation, he has it now.

Byron

Revise & Extend

Well. It begins to look as though proclamations of Israeli defeat, including my own, might have been a tad premature. I'm guessing Olmert got the word, and has turned the war over to his field commanders. Three divisions of reserves called up, making something around 200-225,000 armored troops deployed, (plus 55,000 air force) and headed into the Lebanese interior. How far they will go? The original 25 miles is suddenly looking like an underestimate. Was the early part of the campaign mostly meant to cut off Hezbollah escape routes? If they were surprised by the ferocity of Israel's initial response, they must be running out of clean underwear about now. Maybe Hezbollah will end up shredded, after all. Ojala.

Byron