Whatever Happened To That Whole CIA-Leak Story Anyway?

Rem Rieder at the American Journalism Review asks the question few in the Washington press corps seems willing to pose: Where’s all the coverage of the Valerie Plame leak case these days? After all, it wasn’t all that long ago the city’s tongues were wagging with speculation over the identity of the person who leaked the name of the former CIA operative to columnist Bob Novak, thereby blowing her cover in what was widely assumed to be a campaign to discredit her husband, Bush administration critic Joe Wilson. Now that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has confirmed that he was the original source for Novak’s column, what’s happened to the story? Is the lack of hoopla because, as Reider suggests, because:

… it turns out the villain wasn't an angry neocon bent on revenge against a critic of the Iraq war – Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson – but a Colin Powell ally who was at best a lukewarm supporter of the invasion.

Far from being part of an orchestrated plot or a vast White House conspiracy, Plame's unmasking was simply the handiwork of that Washington, D.C., staple, an insider with a big mouth. The culprit was gossip, not political gunslinging.

The whole thing is worth a read (hat tip: Romenesko). Reider can’t fully answer the question of why the Armitage revelation hasn’t gotten more attention but wonders if the DC press corps simply wants to sweep this one under the rug:

Maybe it's simply a matter of embarrassment. After so much breathless coverage of supposed White House character assassination, maybe the MSM just kind of hoped the whole thing would go away.

Whatever the reason, it was a curious and disappointing performance.