Eternal Plame

I thought I was clever with the post title, but I see Cliff May came up with the same thing.  Let's let Christopher Hitchens sum up the sad Plame/Wilson mess and then let's usher the story gently into that good night.  Here's Hitchens on former CIA chief George Tenent:

But then, rather late in the day, at the end of September 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet himself sent a letter demanding to know whether the law had been broken.

The answer to that question, as Patrick Fitzgerald has since determined, is "no." But there were plenty of senior people who had known that all along. And can one imagine anybody with a stronger motive to change the subject from CIA incompetence and to present a widely discredited agency as, instead, a victim, than Tenet himself? The man who kept the knowledge of the Minnesota flight schools to himself and who was facing every kind of investigation and obloquy finally saw a chance to change the subject. If there is any "irony" in the absurd and expensive and pointless brouhaha that followed, it is that he was abetted in this by so many who consider themselves "radical."

I have long argued here that the Plame/Wilson story was a whole lot of noise about a whole lot of nothing.  Now that we know who the "leaker" was (Richard Armitage) the whole mess seems to have been a big waste of time and money.  James Taranto sums it up well:

Of course, much as this seemed like a sitcom, it had consequences in real life.   Because Armitage did not come clean right away, many people suffered:
 

Millions of taxpayer dollars were wasted investigating a nonexistent crime.    

 

Innocent White House officials were distracted from serving the country in order to participate in the investigation, which was in full swing a year ago when Hurricane Katrina struck.    

 

Scooter Libby lost his job and was indicted for actions that never would     have occurred but for the investigation.    

 

The Democratic left, putting its faith in scandal to bring down the Bush     administration, became even more fatuous and ineffective.

The only winner in this whole deal is Joe Wilson's ego--and think of the toll   it's taken on his poor little superego.